FEATURE
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A Doctor for the Weak and Displaced Interview with Dr. Cynthia Maung
Gwangju News, July 2022
gwangjunewsgic.com
By Arlo Matisz On May 19, 2022, Doctor Cynthia Maung was interviewed for GFN's face2face program. Dr. Maung had just been awarded the May 18 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights award by the May 18 Memorial Foundation for her work providing health services to displaced persons and migrant workers at the Mae Tao Clinic, which she founded in 1988. The clinic is located in a refugee camp on the border of Myanmar and Thailand to provide medical assistance to Myanmar refugees who fled to the Thai border due to the oppression of the Myanmar military. Below is our interview with her.
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rlo Matisz (AM): Thank you, Dr. Maung, for joining us for the interview today. Could you please introduce yourself to our listeners? Cynthia Maung (CM): I am Dr. Cynthia Maung. I have been working for displaced persons on the Thai-Burmese border since 1989. AM: That is a very long time to do very good work. Thank you so much for joining us in the city of Gwangju! Now, obviously you have worked in this
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career for decades, and you were a doctor before that. What gave you a strong interest in medicine? CM: I studied medicine in Myanmar and finished my studies in 1985. Since I was young, I have known that medicine is one of the most important things in my life, because my father was a healthcare provider. I joined my father and saw that many people throughout the world could not access proper healthcare services, so I wanted to work like my father and treat patients so people could enjoy their
2022-06-24 �� 3:45:40