For the month of April, my team and I were working at Kachin Christian Refugee School, a school for Myanmar refugee kids living in Kuala Lumpur. Most of these students came from the Kachin tribe in Myanmar, which is made up of predominantly Christians. They were facing persecution and unrest in the civil war in Myanmar, so they came by land and boat to other countries in Asia, and there is a large population of them living in Malaysia. However, while they wait to be placed in the US, Canada or Australia, it takes a very long time. Some of the students have lived in Malaysia their whole lives, many for 8-9 years. Once their passport expires from Myanmar, they are considered illegal, and they are not allowed to attend Malaysian public schools. Therefore, Kachin School and dozens of other “secret” schools have been set up across the country to attempt to educate the refugee kids. However, these schools often face a lack of trained teachers as well as teachers constantly coming and going since they are mostly refugees as well. So my team and I were with Kachin school to help out as best we could and to love on the kids while we were there!
It was an amazing experience to work with refugee kids in this “transitional” period and see a bit of what they go through as they leave their home country and wait to be placed in a new country. Here is a little video of our month working in Malaysia:
