KO LYNN: FINDING A TEAM FOR DEVELOPMENT

Ko Lynn was a student at Wide Horizons (WH) from 2011 to 2012 and through his current job
he remains in very close contact with the program. WH is like a cornerstone in my life that
affects everything I do, he says. From grassroots work with a local organization in Thailand and
Eastern Myanmar, to plans for a new training center in Northern Myanmar, he has been
motivated by the time spent at WH.

Ko Lynn grew up in a village on the outskirts of Yangon in
Southern Myanmar, but when Cyclone Nargis hit the area in
the spring of 2008 his family had their lives uprooted; they
lost their home, as well as their business. Ko Lynn turned to
family he had in Umphiem refugee camp on the Thai-
Myanmar border and was able to get a job there as a teacher
at a camp-based high school. In 2011 he was accepted to
attend Wide Horizons (WH) in Mae Sot, Thailand. The WH
Program is a 10 month intensive study and field work course
in community development followed by a one year
internship with a Community Based Organization. The program brings in young adults from a
wide variety of ethnicities to live and work together while learning the skills to build community
services in a collaborative way. Since it was established in 2006, WH has trained hundreds of
young adults who are now community workers and leaders.

When Ko Lynn arrived at WH, he soon realized that the community development focus of the
program was just what he had been looking for. Today, he is the Program Assistant at the Khom
Loy Foundation, a local based grassroots
organization that does agriculture, livelihood
and small business projects in low-resource
migrant communities in and around Mae Sot.
Recently they have also started working in
Eastern Myanmar, where Ko Lynn is in charge
of several projects, among them one that
provides rural villages with interest free loans
over a five year period to start their own
businesses and use the profits to develop their communities, for example by building schools.
The villages are located in a remote part of Karen State and in order to reach the villages, he
has to trek through the jungle. Its real development, real change, he says.
Looking back at his time at WH, he is able to see a
clear line between his time at WH and his
professional life today and the many skills from WH
that he and is using every day. In his opinion, the greatest skill he learned was the ability to
work with people of very different ethnic and cultural backgrounds as part of a team. Before I
only used to work with and for myself, but at WH I learned that it is much better working as a
team its not just what you can do, but what WE can do, he says.

While Ko Lynn was a student at WH, the Khom Loy Foundation gave the students a financial
literacy training on how to manage households funds. Afterwards, the students had to give the
training themselves to a community of migrant women living
in the local landfill, where they make a living of collecting and
selling recyclable garbage. It was one thing to do the training
in a classroom with four walls, but a lot more difficult to do
the same training under open sky, among piles of rubbish, he
says. One year later, Ko Lynn was back at WH, but this time as
an intern with the Khom Loy Foundation and this time, he
was the one giving the financial literacy training to the
students. In this way, he has through his academic year, his
internship and now his job, managed to keep a strong
connection with WH and with several generations of
students. Currently, he is busy training the Khom Loy
Foundations new intern, a WH student from the 2013-14
academic year, for when its her turn to give the same
training later this year. However, according to Ko Lynn their shared experience helps a lot: We
studied the same methods at WH and so we think in the same way, he says.

In the future, Ko Lynn wants to open up a vocational training program to provide employment
for youth in Shan State in Northern Myanmar. It will be a local version of WH, he says. He has
created the plan for the project together with his fiance, who is also a former WH student
from the same year as him. Not only has WH provided me with knowledge and skills that have
been valuable in my professional life, but the program has also provided me with a life partner.
Her and I think alike, because we are both former WH students, which means we never fight,
he says with a big smile.


For more information about Wide Horizons, contact: widehorizonsmaesot@gmail.com
or visit our page on Facebook (Wide Horizons, Community Development Program).
Its not just what you can do, but
what WE can do