Montagnard Presentation at Killarney Secondary School
Last month, Johnny Romah and Haley Howe (co-founder of the Eka Society) spoke with a class at Killarney Secondary School about their experiences in Vietnam. Johnny explained how he escaped Vietnam by trekking through the jungle into Cambodia and he talked about the time he spent in the UN refugee camp in Cambodia. He shared the difficulty of being separated from all of his family and arriving in Canada alone, with little English at 15 years of age. Haley spoke of her visit to a Montagnard village in the Highlands of Vietnam and the interrogation she had to go through from the Vietnamese authorities just for visiting.
The students, some of who were Vietnamese-Canadian, were shocked to learn that human rights abuses were happening in Vietnam to a group of people that they had never even heard of before.
Denise North, the teacher at Killarney Secondary who arranged the event, spoke of the value for the students of being able to meet someone that had actually gone through what Johnny had. She said that the students had been studying refugees and meeting Johnny helped them realize that too many people - people much like themselves - all over the world are forced to leave their homeland.
Teacher Denise North, Johnny Romah, Haley Howe at Killarney Secondary School
If you are a teacher and interested in having Johnny & Haley present to your class, please contact: haley@ekasociety.org.
