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Sunanda Oung
My siblings and I are among the few lucky ones
who were able to leave Burma and continue their education abroad
when all the schools in Burma were shut down during pro-democracy
uprisings in the early 1990s. We went to Singapore to finish our
secondary school education.
I completed my undergraduate degree at the American
University of Paris. Thereafter, I went back to Singapore for three
years and worked for KPMG Peat Marwick. Next, I moved to Rome and
worked for the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD), which specializes in rural poverty eradication.
I learned about the effects of poverty on human development, and
the ever-increasing income gap among and within countries around
the world. I also learned about a method of lending called microfinance
which substitutes social collateral for physical collateral and
has enabled millions of poor people to have access to capital.
After two years with IFAD, I came to Washington, DC to study Public
Policy at Georgetown University. Washington is the obvious choice
for my field of study since it has the largest concentration of
the NGOs that are leading players in the fight against poverty.
My sister was also planning to study at Georgetown University and
she heard about ISH from an Italian friend. We were both excited
about the idea of living with people of forty different nationalities.
For us, having grown up in different parts of the world, ISH was
a perfect place. We shared a room after living away from each other
for almost 10 years. This is my first time living in the U. S.,
and ISH enabled me to have much more than an American education
and cultural experience.
Conversations in ISH never fall short of stimulating. We exchange
different ideas and views about world events, cultures, and international
issues such as poverty. Dinner conversation can be better than a
class taught by a famous lecturer. I was amazed at how much some
students know about what is going on in Burma. ISH draws people
who want to see a world that gives better opportunities to everyone,
who are willing to listen to different views, and who are confident
about
what they can contribute to better the world we live in.
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