Home sweet home

A Burmese family has finally found a home to call their own after a journey that spanned three countries.

The Cung family arrived in Canada in 2002 after they fled their home country of Burma, also known as Myanmar. Tawk, his wife, Hlawn and their son Peng, stayed in India before applying for refugee status in Canada.

Tawk worked as a high school science teacher in India for 10 years but fractured his neck when he arrived in Canada, which prevented him from finding work. Hlawn took two jobs – one at the Valhalla Inn and the other at the Mr. Chinese restaurant – to support the family while Peng enrolled at Sir Winston Churchill high school with plans to attend the architect technology program at Confederation College.

The couple had another son named Jeffrey, who is now six years old. In 2008 the family obtained their Canadian citizenship.

Burma became Myanmar in 1991 during a time of civil unrest. Tawk said they fled Burma because it wasn’t safe there. Eventually they fled India for that same reason.

"India is my second country, Canada is my third country," Tawk said on Monday. "We’re citizens of Canada. We’re no longer Burmese. I talk to my friends from Burma and I say Thunder Bay is my second paradise. I love this country, I will never return to Burma."

Having lived on the city’s south side at Limbrick Place for about eight years, she and her family applied for a home with Habitat for Humanity.

Construction of the Mary Street home started early last spring and completed in December.

The family won’t be able to move into the home until after the new year, but Hlawn said she was already thinking about how she could decorate her house for next year.

"I’m so glad to get a new house," Hlawn said. "I never dreamed that I would have a house with everything in it brand new."

Peng said he was glad that the family would finally have a house.

"We spent most of our lives moving from place to place," Peng said. "It’s really nice to finally have a stable home that we`ll be staying in for the next 20 to 30 years."

Diane Mitchell, CEO of Habitat for Humanity, said it is the first time that the organization has worked with Confederation College and AbitibiBowater on building a home. The house was appraised at around $125,000, she said.

She added that she was excited to have the family move into their new home.

"It’s always the icing on the cake," Mitchell said. "We’ve been working with this family for about a year now so they could get their mandatory volunteer hours. We get to know the families quite well by the time they are ready to move in and then we have a partnership with them until their mortgage is paid off."

On average, Habitat for Humanity builds two homes per year. While a majority of the charity’s 22 houses have been built on donated land, Habitat for Humanity still needs to purchase land at times, which is why it also needs to raise more money through its raffle tickets.

"We need the money to buy the land," she said. "We’re in a bit of a crunch. We’re hoping with our $100,000 cash raffle that will be able to raise all the money we will need. We would like to buy two pieces of land and get them into the bank. I don’t ever want to tell a family they can’t have a home because we don’t have the funds."

She added there are 10 families waiting for construction to begin. For more information for raffle tickets go to the Habitat for Humanity website.