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05/13/12 | Uncategorized

A Mother’s Day Story – Hope In Times Of Crisis

As a triple bottom line company, Prosperity Candle is reliant on the support of mission-aligned partners to help us scale their work as they support women from distressed parts of the world to rebuild their lives. Prosperity Candle’s new partner, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), shares their values of investing in fair trade and women and girls in places affected by conflict and natural disaster. Here is Mee Mee’s story of fleeing Burma and creating a new future for her children. Mee Mee is one example of the reason that Prosperity Candle thinks deeply about the three bottom lines of people, planet and profit.

By Judith Santiago (Media Communications Associate, United Methodist Committee on Relief)

Mee Mee heard that the soldiers were coming. She took hold of her son and frantically joined the rest of the villagers who were running toward the Thai-Burmese border, where the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was located. Her husband was in another village running in the opposite direction, Mee later learned. After the soldiers’ pursuit ended, Mee returned home to her small village in Koechi, Burma.

During 1997-2000, Mee and thousands like her lived under the constant threat of violence from Burmese soldiers. Many would take temporary refuge in the jungle, and return home to their village after soldiers left the area, just to do it all over again days later. About once a week, Mee and others would be on the move to avoid capture, rape, or death by soldiers. In one incident, Mee’s husband ran ahead of his wife to secure food for his family. Her husband was spotted by soldiers and shot. The bullet shattered a portion of his ribcage, leaving him severely wounded and in distress as he journeyed toward the jungle with his family for safety.

For three months, Mee’s husband hid and moved the family with an exasperating wound at his side. He received no medical care, except for Mee’s tending.

“I was afraid to return to Burma,” Mee said through an interpreter. “I feared dying. I cried and cried every day,” she continued.

Mee’s husband eventually drew enough strength to walk five days toward a small village in Thailand where they learned the location of a hospital and a refugee camp. When Mee and her husband finally arrived at the hospital, he underwent immediate surgery and later recovered.

Symbol of Hope

Life in the jungle for those fleeing Burmese soldiers was indeed terrifying and difficult. Makeshift bamboo tents with only roof and floor coverings became suitable temporary dwellings. Many women including Mee gave birth to children in the jungle. Mee’s then six-year-old son assisted in the delivery of his sister named Eh Ku Hser. Her name means love – cold – sweet. “Cold” in Burmese culture means so as to not pass through the fire of life, as heat represents troubled times.

“I hoped my daughter would be free from difficult and troubling times,” said Mee. “I did not want her to go through what I had experienced,” she continued. For Mee, the birth of her daughter in the midst of darkness, torment and fear, was a symbol of hope for a new life to come. Hope in times of crisis, the very premise of the United Methodist Committee on Relief’s (UMCOR) newly co-branded UMCOR-Prosperity Candle, is also the essence of that which candles shed light upon.

A New Beginning

With the help of UNHCR, hope for a new life did indeed materialize for Mee and her family when they resettled in West Springfield, Massachusetts. There, Mee met Moo Kho Paw, another woman who emigrated from Burma, and who was working at Prosperity Candle in Florence. The organization helps refugee women who have escaped areas of conflict rebuild their lives through the art of candle making. Moo Kho recommended that Mee join the organization, and Mee gladly accepted.

“I was excited to be out of the house,” said Mee, “I was raised to believe that because I was a woman, my role was to remain at home and raise my family,” she continued. “While many Burmese women want to do more for themselves, they are often encouraged to remain homemakers.”

Today, Mee has plans to go into the candle-making business for herself and support her five children, but she expressed the need to learn English first.

“In the Thai refugee camp, we had education, but it was not so good,” said Mee. “When I was a child, I wanted to go to school, but I was told to stay home because I was a woman. Now, I have hopes for my daughters to go to college and become doctors or policewomen,” continued Mee.

Support Refugee Women in the US

Share this Mother’s Day story with your loved ones. And, when you purchase handmade candles by Mee, Moo Kho, and Naw, another Burmese refugee woman working at Prosperity Candle, know you are helping to support their livelihood as they rebuild their lives and those of their family members in the US.

10% of each UMCOR-Prosperity Candle you buy goes to support poverty-alleviation programs through UMCOR’s World Hunger and Poverty program.

Mee has struck an even balance in her life that she wishes others would have found — a simple, happy life where work, caring for family members and freedom of choice all have their place.

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

About the guest blogger: Judith Santiago is Media Communications Associate for the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) of the General Board of Global Ministries. As a developer of digital media assets and print resource materials for the United Methodist Church, she shares the diverse work of UMCOR to demonstrate UMCOR’s mission to alleviate human suffering around the world. In her travels, Judith observed firsthand the benefits of community development and grassroots training UMCOR provides that sustains people’s livelihoods each day.

Anne-Gail Moreland

Anne-Gail Moreland

Anne-Gail Moreland, an intern with Women 2.0, was on the StartupBus. She studies neuroscience at Mount Holyoke College, where she is trying to merge a passion for tech and the brain into a new wave of cognition-based technology

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