It was as I neared my retirement from the faculty at Colgate University, my wife Liz and I first went to live in a refugee camp with Karen refugees from Burma. We returned each year for the next two decades, and created the Brackett Refugee Education Fund to help children and young adults achieve their educational goals. We now support refugees in Burma, Thailand, India and Bangladesh at a level of about $300,000 per year.
We were aware of the good fortune of our lives and wished to spend our remaining years in service to others. That plus the fact that on our first visit the Karen people offered us such friendliness, respect, and hospitality that the only possible response was to return with love.
Currently we give university scholarships to about 250 students a year, and help upwards of 8-900 children in primary and secondary school. We have dozens of stories. One follows:
We first met Aung Win Shwe in a refugee camp along the Thai border with Burma. While I was teaching at the Karen headquarters at Manerplaw, he was assigned to be a bodyguard for my wife and to help her escape into the jungle should the Burmese military attack the camp.
Later on we helped him study at a branch of Bradford University then located in Bangkok. After graduation, in a great surprise to us, he actually contributed a considerable sum of money to help us continue our work.
And in another effort, which give us a great deal of pleasure, Aung Win Shwe started his own program to help refugees and others from Burma achieve and education. He still operates this program in connection with a university in Australia. Finally Aung Win Shwe has risen in the estimation of his own people and now serves as a delegate to the ceasefire talks between his people and the government of Burma.
Older workers seek no personal gain. By the time of retirement their resume is complete. Their future now belongs to those they serve, and their satisfaction is in the latter’s achievements.