My name is Sein Win Naing and I was born in Rangoon, Burma in 1968. There are six siblings in the family and I am the second. After passing the 10th grade in 1986, I attended Rangoon University majoring in Botany. After completing my first year, I had to change the form of my study to correspondence and worked as a civil servant at #6 Heavy Industry Corporation producing vehicle tires.
At the beginning of March 1988, there was a conflict between the students and some civilians. On account of unfair administration of the authorities concerned, it turned to unrest. On March 13th 1988, one of the Rangoon Institute of Technology students was shot to death by the riot police and the unrest became more serious. Finally, it changed to the pro-democracy uprising against the rule of one party system government. So I joined the demonstration and later on, I was dismissed from my service for my loyal support to the cause of democracy. From that moment on, I devoted my life to that movement and I along with many other people from all walks of life started the demonstration very often. Then, the people’s pro-democracy movement became stronger and stronger day after day and it spread all over the country. Finally, the military seized the state power on the 18th September 1988 and the army cracked down the peaceful demonstration by gunning down the innocent participants; moreover, the soldiers began to chase down the people who were involved in leader roles as well as they could identify as having participated and put them in the prison. In the late September 1988, in fear of being arrested by the brutal government, I had to leave my family members and fled to the Burma-Thai border which was out of control of the government. Since then, I did not have any contact with my family. In late 1993, due to poor living condition and luck of foods at the border area, I decided to travel to Bangkok, Thailand for a better life. In Bangkok, there was an organization called United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee and I applied for refugee status. I was organized as a concern person to the UNHCR and started working as a volunteer interpreter at the office of the UNHCR in Bangkok. During that time, I met a girl who was also from Burma and we got married in 1995. Though I was a refugee under the protection of UNHCR and worked for them, I had to face the arrest of the Thai-police on a charge of illegal immigrant. However, I was not taken to the police station accepting money as a bribe. We had to watch out for the police at anytime, anywhere and we were in fear of living condition in Thailand.
During facing various difficulties and hardships, we realized that it was impossible to reside in Thailand and we got to look for a way to leave the country. At that time, there were a few countries that gave the sponsorships to the refugees for the resettlement in their land. We chose the United States and applied for the resettlement in their land. Fortunately, we were sponsored by Catholic Social Services based in Indianapolis. Meantime we gave birth to a baby girl, July Moe at the refugee camp in 1997. Three months later, we departed from Thailand to United States for a better future. We arrived in Indianapolis in November 1997 and on December 24th, I started working in cafeteria at Indiana University. As soon as I got a job, I tried to get in contact with my family from Burma. After trying so many ways, I got in touch with them by the phone and it was the happiest moment of my life. In December 2002 we gave birth to another baby girl and much of the time my wife just stayed home and took care of the kids. In 2007, we became citizens of the United States and my wife started working part-time. Since then, we have been looking for a house so that my family could live a peacefully and freely. As we did not have high paying jobs, we could not find an affordable house.
Finally, I heard about the Habitat Home Ownership program through the media and my friends and I thought that it would be a great chance for having a home with our low income. So we are so excited and so eager to participate in the program to have a new home which will be sweet home away from our native country.

Yours Sincerely,

Sein Win Naing