From Ashes to Sunshine

Episode #401: “Look at my eye. Trust me! You can do this!” With steady assurance, Nay Chi Linn describes her work at the Sunshine Care Center (SCC), a border-based facility she founded to care for Myanmar’s war-injured. Located on the Thai side of the border, the SCC provides daily care, physiotherapy, rehabilitation, and emotional support.

Nay Chi Linn was raised in Yangon and studied law before moving to Chiang Mai for further study. There, she met an ethnic Karen man and got married; the couple lived in a refugee camp with his family for two years before moving out, but staying nearby on the Thai side of the border. After the 2021 coup, she started financially supporting civil servants and protesters, but Myanmar authorities began investigating her, and were able to trace a bank transfer. Warned of the imminent danger of being detained, she fled to her in-laws’ house in the Karen-controlled town of Lay Kaw Kaw. There, in the chaos of displacement after the coup, she began helping people fleeing the regime or displaced by fighting with food, shelter, supplies and health needs; over time, the needs grew and her improvisations became more systematized, laying the foundations for what would become the SCC, which she opened after moving back into Thailand.

Nay Chi Linn works with patients with a blend of firmness and empathy— what she calls the “energy of mom.” She allows the initial anger, fear and frustration of patients facing their challenging situations to wash over her, and then urges them to focus on what they have left and take responsibility for their recovery, for their families’ and even their country’s sake.

The SCC is a demanding ecosystem of care that rests on routine, discipline, and morale. The busy, involved day starts early and ends late: medical teams check lists and send those with appointments to hospitals; logistics drives runs back and forth all day; evenings bring pickups and resets for the next day. Within those routines, the work itself is often improvisational and pressured. Amid this challenging, sometimes chaotic environment, Nay Chi Linn is always there for the people in her care. “I have no time to cry!” she exclaims about her workday. Still, she admits that she sometimes breaks down in private afterwards, yet still finds a way to keep going.