Insight Myanmar14 Tammi 2025

Homeward Bound

Episode #301: “I want to invite everybody to see the Karen people not just as victims, but to experience the real beauty in the culture, the uniqueness, the simplicity.”

These are the words of Saw Sha Kerpaw Wah, a humanitarian from Karen State, Myanmar, who shares his story of displacement, identity, and commitment to his people. Born in 1995 during the fall of Manerplaw, the headquarters of the Karen National Union, his family fled through the jungle, marking the start of their journey as refugees. Sha Kerpaw Wah spent his early childhood in a refugee camp in Thailand, before his family resettled in Norway. There they found safety, but engendered a sense of cultural dissonance. Although warmly welcomed in Norway, and living there for 20 years, Wah always felt a deep spiritual connection to Kawthoolei, the Karen homeland, feeling that it was his "duty" to return and serve his people.

A major turning point in Wah’s life came during his final year of college when he watched a video of Karen indigenous leader, Saw O Moo, inspiring him to leave his studies and fully dedicate himself to humanitarian work. He began making frequent trips back to Kawthoolei, working to support those displaced by Myanmar’s ongoing civil war.

Today, Sha Kerpaw Wah continues to serve the Karen people, advocating for education, self-reliance, and a united leadership among Karen leaders. His ultimate dream is to see a peaceful, independent Kawthoolei where future generations can grow up free from the violence and trauma that have shaped his life.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(595)

The Missing Self

Episode #580: Professor P. L. Dhar, a longtime Vipassana teacher in the S.N. Goenka tradition, reflects on his life-long spiritual journey. A decade immersed in Vedanta and other Indian traditions, al...

30 Heinä 2h 15min

Rangoon Calling

Episode #579: “I did not expect to be conversing in Urdu with someone in Yangon.” Bilal Hassan, a Pakistani creator and doctor, traveled to Burma after noticing how much of Karachi’s everyday culture ...

28 Heinä 1h 42min

Past the Commentaries

Episode #578: Aye Myat Thwe is a Burmese lay Buddhist practitioner raised inside the Mahasi Vipassana world, where devotion, meditation, and study were braided into ordinary family life. Watching her ...

27 Heinä 1h 54min

A Border Runs Through It

Episode #577: Thomas Shapwon, a Naga elder and former politician, recounts the long struggle of the Naga people for sovereignty and survival between India and Myanmar. He describes the Naga as an anci...

24 Heinä 1h 51min

The Hidden Flock

Episode #576: “I have been attempted [at assassinations] twice when they shot me, but I escaped. My family, my brother, they are targeted, and armed groups are always behind us. They kill in a second....

23 Heinä 1h 4min

Terms of Extraction

Episode #575: Lindsey Kennedy, an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker focused on organized crime, corruption, and conflict, argues that the scam-compound economy across Cambodia, Myanma...

21 Heinä 1h 26min

Unscripted Awakening

Episode #574: Diego Prieto, a Chilean filmmaker, embarked on a journey to explore the Buddha's legacy and its modern relevance. His documentary started as an effort to explain the core teachings of Bu...

20 Heinä 1h 6min

Behind the Firewall

Episode #573: “I brought you here to the United States not so you could forget our homeland,” Salih Hudayar remembers his father telling him, “but so you could become educated and one day return to li...

17 Heinä 3h 21min