New Blogger

Hi,

My name is Renee and I have been involved with Padaukpan since its beginning which is about a year now. I think. Well . . at least its not more than a year. Because over a year ago I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn and now I live in washington dc. In fact everyone who participates (except Khin who goes to school in NYC) lives around DC.

We decided to start this group to help raise awareness for the women from Burma. I have my assumptions about why everyone else is involved in creating and sustaining this group, but I'm just going to tell you my reasons.

In 1999 I saw a guy named Jeremy speak about the situation in Burma. I had never even heard of Burma before that night. But I listened and watched his slideshow and I was moved. Maybe it's incredible voice or his ernest concern or maybe it was just a moment where I thought I can't NOT do something, but I've been doing something ever since. I think more than anything else I was terribly confused about how the world didn't know about what was happening there. I mean in 1988 hundreds of people were murdered in the streets of their very city by their very own government. Why hadn't I ever heard of it? Why wasn't I reading about it in the newspapers? Why wasn't it front page that a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize was under house arrest? (By the way 7 years later I'm still wondering).

Well I don't want to go on and on about why I show up every two weeks for a meeting of Padaukpan but I do want to explain why we have this blog.

We want the world to know why we care. We want the world to know all the things we know about the situation in Burma. We think in some way that if we talk about in every form possible to as many people as possible maybe we can make a difference. Maybe if enough people find out and are as stunned as we are, maybe the violence will stop.

If you don't know about the situation in Burma, then take a look at the Us Campaign For Burma website.

Thanks and I'll talk to you every Monday. (Each day you'll hear from someone in our group).

-- Renee