Students Support Myanmar Protests

At Whitman College, a Burmese student, whose family was beaten and intimidated during the junta crackdown in Myanmar, is using the recent memory of the September protests to spark sustained student interest in the situation, the Whitman Pioneer reports. While the demonstrations were happening in Myanmar, he and another Burmese student worked on campus to organize a series of awareness events, including a march, a vigil, and a 24-hour hunger strike. Since then, he has raised more than $600 for his cause and organized special events like "Eye on Burma," where students gathered at Whitman's Global Awareness House to read compiled news articles and discuss the situation in Myanmar. The next step, he says, will be public screenings of films on Burma.