AEIOU is calling for Volunteers Professors and Lecturers

Pre-Semester Interview with Rector of AEIOU

(Prof. Dr. Ma Tin Yee, more affectionately known as Aunty Rosy, is the Rector of All Ethnic International Open University)

BURMA DIGEST: So you have successfully completed this semester. Some people got  confused and so can you tell me what the difference between EWOB and AEIOU is?

Prof Yee: Yes! We have successfully concluded this 2008 semester. EWOB is Empowering Women of Burma which is an NGO founded since 1992,     and registered in Canada where I started with one sewing machine in the Thai-Burma border area to help the refugees’ women and children. Since then we have come a long way working silently with humility and sincerity. AEIOU is the one of the major projects of EWOB started as a University Upgrading Course (UPC) as a pilot project in 1999/2000.

BURMA DIGEST: How did AEIOU started?

Prof Yee: Working for the women and children in the refugee camps I discovered the real problem of the youths. The refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and Migrant Youths are prevented from further studies because they have little or no choice. Annually, the refugee camps at the Thai Burma border regions are churning out about 3,000 highs schools graduates. Camp leaders and elders who have vision requested us to find opportunity for the younger generation to study. Very few of them have little or no hope for further education. Some found jobs with the NGOs with a minimum wage but most of them are unemployed. Some sneak into towns to work as illegal immigrant workers. Some got involved in narcotic and became a problem to the community and to the host country. Others became desperate and went out to the front lines to battle the Junta forces.  Some of them got married and their offspring and family suffered the same fate and vicious cycle begins. Less than one percent of these youths get scholarships to study abroad but here again they faced a lot of problems and difficulties as they are placed into an entirely new atmosphere with different value system, language, climatic conditions and food. Obviously very few could keep up with the modern method of life at their respective universities abroad. It seems that the prospects of these refugees have little or no future at all. There should be some alternatives to ease all these tension and create better world. Hence the continuing education becomes a necessity and we founded this AEIOU.

EWOB/AEIOU is calling for New Students for 2009

 

Please apply only if you are age between 20 and 30 and do not belong to the 3 Gs _

[Guns; you must not be a relative of Lt. Colonel and above of the Burmese army. Gold; must obsess in Gold such as going to a third country for good or a crony of a Junta. Goons; must not belong to pro-military goons organizations (Kyant-Phut/SwanArrShin) that rough ride shot over the common people.] 

* Download application forms: Click _  O-Form  outside Burma, I-Form inside Burma