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Burmese Water Festival to be held in Carrboro

Water guns, water balloons and spray fighting will all be a part of the Burmese Water Festival to be held at Abbey Court Condominiums this month.

To honor the growing number of Burmese who live in Abbey Court, the Human Rights Center will be hosting the festival, originally called Thingyan.

“We promote inclusion and pluralism, and choosing events that are major holidays for our neighbors have been a way of doing that. We have Burmese refugees who live in Abbey Court, they are shy and underserved, so we thought we would celebrate them,” said Dr. Judith Blau, founder of the center.

The festival celebrates the Burmese New Year that is held in mid-April. Water constitutes the main aspect of the festival and its’ representation is a cleansing of the old and a welcoming to the new.

“It is a Buddhist celebration. It signifies the cleansing of the body for the New Year. It doesn’t have any religious intention to it, it’s simply just a cultural ritual,” said Aye Aye, a member of Blau’s sociology class.

Last year the center hosted “Las Pasadas,” to honor Hispanics in Abbey Court. They had a horse, featured Latin music and ethnic food. Some of these activities will be woven into the festival, but the emphasis will remain on the Burmese holiday.

Some Burmese immigrated on their own. Others moved here as part of a federal government relocation program for political refugees.  Burma, now called Myanmar is embroiled in conflict and is ruled by dictatorship.

“Within the recent years, there was a crisis about monks being killed by the government because they were rebelling against the dictatorship government. The citizens have been trying to overthrow the government,” said Aye.

“There’s been a lot of political repression in Burma. I suspect that our neighbors were caught up in political repression or ethnic conflicts,” said Blau.

Aye’s family is Burmese and they immigrated to the U.S. in 2003. It was a difficult time for the entire family, but mostly for his parents because of the language barriers.

“Our whole family had no prior English speaking experience. It was hard. But I think it was a lot harder for my parents because they would complain to me about how they were not able to communicate with their employers. There weren’t any translators available in their work field,” said Aye.

Blau estimates that around 10 percent of the Abbey Court population is Burmese and several of their children are regulars at the center, but the population is not limited to Abbey Court.

“There are a few families, but in other communities in Carrboro there are even more. The center sees about six Burmese children. Their families recognize our good intentions and we are honored to serve their children,” said Alfonso Hernandez, a center worker.

Thaw Tu Tu and his family arrived in the U.S. two years ago and none of them could speak English. Now Tu Tu, who attends the after-school program at the center, makes perfect scores on his math tests.

Communication with the new Burmese population has been difficult for families, the center and police.

“It can be difficult when we deal with Burmese in the area because of the language barrier. Fortunately there are students at UNC-CH who are available to translate, otherwise we would be without,” said Major Charles Blackwood of the Orange County sheriff’s office.

But the center will be prepared to communicate with the Burmese during the festival since several of Blau’s students are Burmese and speak the same dialect. Blau’s sociology students will be on hand to direct the festival and take part in the fun.

The festival will offer a variety of activities including tug-of-war, face painting, parachutes, kites, and several water games. It will also include a Mariachi band and tamales. And the festival will take donations for the victims in Haiti and Chile and raise awareness about Fair-Trade.

“As a sociologist a festival affirms social community and relations, builds solidarity and helps to reaffirm human rights through its success on community,” said Blau.

“We want an active and comfortable community for Abbey Court, and we want them to feel at home. We have to realize that coming to America from a different country is difficult,” said Hernandez.

The festival will be held April 24 at Abbey Court Condominiums from noon until four.

Technology Without Borders Assists Low-Income Families

Many low-income families do not own computers or have internet access, but thanks to several community organizations this will change in the near future.

Technology Without Borders is a UNC-CH Campus Y organization that will be installing free wireless internet at Abbey Court Condominiums and distributing free computers.

“There was a group of us sitting around thinking about what we wanted to do for the semester, so we tried to figure out what we could do locally. Once we found the Human Rights Center everything just fell into place,” said Shaddi Hasan, one of TWB’s co-chairs.

TWB has not been around for long. The group was only awarded its grant donation of $8,000 in the fall 2009, but that has not stopped the group from dreaming big when it comes to trying to conquer the “digital divide.”

According to Wikipedia, the definition of the digital divide, “refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all.” This gap is preventing people of all ages from applying for jobs and entering college, and it is impeding their education.

Technology Without Borders is starting in Carrboro’s Abbey Court Condominium.

The project will be completed in three stages. Volunteers will begin with the installation of the wireless network, follow with the distribution of computers to eligible homes, and finish with community computer training classes through the Human Rights Center, said Hasan.

TWB members have already begun to work with the students to get to know the families at Abbey Court.

“The internet changed my life infinitely for the better, and then multiply that by how many people this is going to affect and it is just amazing,” said Ashton Mickey, a TWB member who is volunteering at the Center.

The installation of the wireless network is under way, and the distribution of free computers will soon begin.

“We will be giving computers to every family that doesn’t have one who has a student within the next month or so, thanks to the school system and Kramden Institute,” said Hasan.

Kramden Institute in Durham, a not-for-nonprofit organization, “is dedicated to empowering hardworking, economically disadvantaged, students by awarding them home PC computers,” according to their Web site.

Renny Johnson, manager of Community Connection Program and IT director for Chapel Hill and Carrboro school systems, made the computer donations happen, according to Hasan.

Hasan said TWB’s main goal with the project is to raise the number of K-12 students who have access to computers and internet in their homes because it is a serious impediment to their learning and educational opportunities.

“In the Chapel Hill and Carrboro District, 1,100 kids classify as underserved which means not having internet or computers in their homes. One of the main reasons we chose Abbey Court to begin is because 191 of those students live in Abbey Courts alone. Also, the Human Rights Center already had a presence there,” said Hasan.

The Human Rights Center is housed in Apartment E8, and TWB has already installed two of the modems for the wireless internet in that building, making it completely wireless and operational.

The people who are involved with the Human Rights Center are very excited for the project.

“We have a child who comes here who doesn’t even really know how to type on a computer and in this day and age that is a big detriment. So that is going to change for him, his life is going to be changed by this, and that’s amazing,” said Nancy Hilburn who volunteers at the Center and works for the Mary Scroggs Elementary School in Chapel Hill.

Hilburn is the inclusion facilitator at the school and comes to the center to help the children with their homework after school.

Another person witnessing this change first hand is Alfonso Hernandez. He lives at The Human Rights Center and manages the after-school program for the kids.

“I feel like once it is up and finally running the kids will still be coming here, but they will be able to have it (internet) at home as well,” said Hernandez.

“We are also going to provide classes for adults on how to use a computer because many of the parents have to ask their kids how to use a computer. The parents will also benefit a lot to learn about the internet,” said Hernandez.

Technology Without Borders is steadily working towards putting in the wireless devices around Abbey Court and will continue over the next several months, while holding classes which will help prepare the families receiving computers how to use them.

“What we need to see the most in all of this is how much we can accomplish when we work together,” said Dr. Blau, founder of the Human Rights Center.

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