Burmese refugees find home and hockey in Canada

By Sam Cooper, Vancouver Province, December 5, 2009.

Early in the morning, a 13-year-old child in an eastern Burma village heard a pack of dogs barking. Her parents quickly gathered her sisters and brothers, and the family of 10 ran as government troops stormed their village, firing machine guns and burning huts.

The family hid by a river in the nearby jungle, watching smoke rise above the trees. When day turned to night, they ran through the trees and crossed a river into neighbouring Thailand, where they moved into a refugee camp.

That was 1992.

Now an adult, Zipporah Min, of an ethnic group called Karen, recalls that the leaders of the ruling military junta of Burma — also known as Myanmar — had pledged “the only place you will find a Karen is in a museum.”

But a small community of Karen people on Canada’s west cost — one of several across the country — would say otherwise.

In 2006, Zipporah Min became one of the first 350 Karen to settle as a refugee in Langley, B.C.

She now works with the local school district, helping other young Karen adapt to life in British Columbia. Two of the parents she has been helping, Ali Shar, 43, and his wife Nwel Nwel, 36, arrived in 2007.

Ali Shar says his family rejoiced at leaving their bamboo hut in a Thai refugee camp.

When he heard the Canadian government had accepted his family, Ali Shar remembers thinking:

“If we go to Canada, we will be free to go where we want to go. The children will have a future.”

When the family arrived in Langley and saw the snow-capped mountains bordering the valley, he thought: “I’ve never dreamed of a place like this.”

Lisa Sadler is a settlement worker for the school district, and says a seasonal donation bank assists to support the families — and hockey helps Karen youth fit in.

“(It) really helps them integrate. It helps them meet Canadian kids,” she explains.

Last year, the donation bank gave the children hockey sticks and equipment. The younger children play road hockey, and about 40 of the teens are involved in a program with former NHL great Trevor Linden.

“They feel like they are Canadian now,” Zipporah Min says. “It’s a very big experience for them since they’ve never seen ice before.”

Sadler says the Langley community has really gathered around the Karen, underlining the value of Canadian citizenship.

“As I hear the families’ stories it breaks my heart,” she says. “I feel so fortunate to have grown up in Canada safe, with a roof over my head.”