The Indiana Medical Licensing Board on Thursday lifted the emergency suspension of a Fort Wayne oncologist who in January was charged with leading police on a high-speed chase while having illegal drugs in his system. Dr.Ko Thin Ko lives in Washington, D.C., but his mind has been on Fort Wayne lately.
The Burmese videographer has been making weekend trips to the Summit City with an ambitious goal – creating a TV show to help refugees learn about their new homes.
Refugees from Burma – or Myanmar as the country is called by its ruling military junta – were forced out by political or religious persecution. Since the 1990s, the U.S. State Department has been resettling many in the Fort Wayne area, where the concentrated population has encouraged Burmese refugees originally resettled elsewhere in the U.S. to move to reunite with family and friends.
Ko Thin Ko received asylum in the U.S. in 2005. He is a TV producer for some government agencies and news programs, but he’s doing this project independently, financing his trips with his own money and the time and investment of other volunteers.
The handful of local volunteers behind Golden Moon TV receive technical assistance and studio time from Access Fort Wayne, a department of the Allen County Public Library, which will broadcast the program on local public access stations.
Because it’s public television, sponsors are welcomed, but the group cannot run commercials.
“We’re able to sustain it because all of us are really interested,” Ko Thin Ko said. “It’s not easy to produce a half-an-hour program, but we’re trying the best.”
Fort Wayne resident Thiha Kyi was part of an early wave of Burmese refugees who arrived here in 1994.
A political activist, Thiha Kyi became friends with Ko Thin Ko, who would call him for interviews for his television programs. The two men had another connection: Ko Thin Ko’s wife graduated from high school in Burma with Thiha Kyi.
Thiha Kyi earned his master’s in business administration in 2000, and he said many of the refugees who came to the U.S. around the same time had good educational backgrounds like his that have made it easier to succeed here.
The latest wave of refugees is much more likely to be uneducated or illiterate. Many have spent their entire lives in refugee camps. In some cases, their lack of education or unawareness of societal norms has led to conflicts, such as a highly publicized incident earlier this year at a Fort Wayne laundry.
Many Burmese – those who have lived their entire lives in refugee camps – may be unaware even of traditions in their own culture, Thiha Kyi said.
He’s been trying to help the newer refugees embrace both where they come from and adapt to American life. He talks to as many as he can, but he’s only one person. He has helped distribute pamphlets, but that doesn’t help those who cannot read.
That’s why Thiha Kyi believes a Burmese-language television program is the best option to reach as many as possible.
“If we directly talk to them, that will be more effective,” he said. “I strongly believe it’s something they can learn. They can change their lifestyle.”
Thiha Kyi said he and the other local volunteers are trying to learn from Ko Thin Ko so they can produce the program themselves.
“We are trying to stand up on our own feet,” he said. “In the meantime, it will take three or four months.”
They have been planning local talk shows. In one, with an “American Dream” theme, five Burmese refugees discuss what challenges they face in the U.S.
The refugee experience is similar, but the panelists have distinct backgrounds, spending time in Japan, South Korea and the Thai jungle, Thiha Kyi said.
One planned program tells refugees about the American education system and how to get into American colleges and universities. Another pairs parents and teenagers – who, brought up in America, often clash with their parents – and discusses ways to resolve family conflicts.
Fort Wayne, which has a Burmese population estimated between 5,000 and 6,000, seemed the logical choice for the first broadcast. But the organizers hope they can expand to other areas the State Department has resettled large numbers of Burmese, such as Buffalo, Utica, Albany and Queens, N.Y., and parts of North Carolina.
Thiha Kyi doesn’t like to call the programs educational. He prefers “knowledge sharing” – refugees drawing upon their own experiences to help others.
Public access coordinator Bob Ihrie said that model fits with the purpose of the library and Access TV, which will broadcast the first Burmese-language program Wednesday on Comcast channel 58 and Frontier channel 28.
“It’s great to be able to offer a place for people to show their talents and what they have to offer their neighbors,” Ihrie said.
Access TV has helped the public share stories for 30 years, supported by a percentage of Comcast’s and Frontier’s franchise fees and the library.
Ihrie’s job is to bring new producers into the fold; Access TV has about 100 producers who created 2,000 shows last year, he said.
The public access channels just ran a series about a doctor who lived with Burmese refugees in camps as part of Doctors Without Borders, he said. But the program created and produced by refugees, in Burmese language, is something new and different.
“We’ve done shows aimed at the English-speaking population about the Burmese,” he said. “This is really going to be for the Burmese.”
