Burmese Women's Voices

Altsean Burma (Alternative Asean Network on Burma) publishes a book yearly filled with stories written by Burmese women. It is produced in Burmese (to be shared among other Burmese women) and in English (to be shared with the international community). Typically, Altsean sends out for submissions to organizations across Thailand (and abroad) - an opportunity for Burmese women of all ethnicities to tell their stories.

This year, Altsean Burma brought in an Australian professor, Janie Conway-Herron, to do 3 workshops on writing skills for interested women. The workshops were held in Chiang Mai, Mae Sot and Sangklaburi. I was lucky enough to be accepted to attend in Sangklaburi in the role of a woman supporting the work of Burmese women.

The group in Sangklaburi consisted of 10 Mon women from the Mon Women's Organization.

Through their work, many of the women are accustomed to writing structured and informative articles. Technique wise, Janie had them write first in 3rd person, then in 1st person, or in 2nd person and then talk about how each felt different. Many of the women spoke about how they began to feel when they wrote in1st person...

It's scary as hell to share anything personal, never mind something traumatic. They were all brave enough.

Last year's publication contains a series of poems by women in a Burmese jail. Aung San Su Kyi (winner of Nobel Peace Prize), through certain contacts, managed to arrange to have these women write poems by carving the script on plastic wrap, folding them small, and smuggling them out. The necessary secretive nature of that shows just how powerful writing can be. All of the women at the workshop understood this - they felt the strength in their voices and were so appreciative of being taught skills in how to use it. Their commitment and dedication to their cause is tremendous.

They will all have to use false names, and be taken off our group email when they go back inside next month.

The book will be published in June 2007 and is available to order by contacting altsean@altsean.org. I'll bring some home too.