Aung Hlaing is a disadvantaged ethnic student who grew up in a small village named Nong Mon Village located in Kachin State, Myanmar. There are five members in his family, his parents, one older sister, and one older brother. When he was in Grade 4, he and his brother were sent to live and attend school in a monastery because his parents could not afford their school fees. After three years in the monastery, his parents took them back home and then sent them to a school in Namkham Township, Shan State, Myanmar.

After he finished grade 10 at the school in Namkham Township in 2015, he heard about the internship program at Kaw Dai Organization, then he decided to attend an 8 months internship program that aims to promote justice and democracy in society, especially through education.

On several occasions when he was a student in Kaw Dai internship program, in the winter seasons, a group of students collected clothes and took a trip to a remote village in Southern Shan State for distribution purposes. When he arrived at that village, he saw many things that made him feel sad. Although there were many children in the village, but there was no teacher to teach them and lead them to the way of education. Many women got married too young and gave birth to stillborn children due to the lack of sex education.

After seeing those things, he started to realize that achieving higher education is not only for himself but also for promoting his community. In addition, he got a chance to participate in a survey collecting the voices of two ethnic groups: Shan and Palaung  ‒ in order to build long-term peace between Shan and Palaung people. After completing the 8 months internship program at Karli, he was selected to study at the Kaw Dai Intensive English program in Yangon for one year. During that one year, he had a chance to improve his English four skills and study with foreign teachers. After he finished the Kaw Dai Intensive English program, he became a member of the Kaw Dai organization and served as a teacher at Shan National School.

Shan National School is a boarding school and was established in 2007 in order to educate Shan children in his community, especially those who are from conflict areas and therefore are not able to access educational opportunities in their mother tongue language. During serving as a teacher at Shan National School, he gained many great experiences in teaching different kinds of students and learning different kinds of their behaviors. Moreover, he learned how to work as a team effectively through working with other teachers. After one year of serving as a teacher, Kaw Dai offer him a chance to further his education and study at Shan Community College until he earned his diploma degree in social science.

Currently, he is studying in his final year for a Bachelor’s degree in English for International Communication Art at Chiang Rai Rajabhat University. He always believes that education is a tool to make a better life and a better community, in order to help children who lack educational opportunities and improve their community through education, it is a great opportunity for him to study abroad and improve himself through different kinds of experiences in Thailand. Therefore, he is going to do his best in every aspect of his study and serve his community after he graduates.

Kwah Dao is currently assisting him with an emergency student loan (without interest) due to his health problems that happened during the 1st semester of this 2023 academic year. Such unexpected health problems cost extremely high medical fees which he needed to pay it using almost all his 1st-semester living expenses. Kwah Dao is aware that he is in a difficult situation and to avoid these financial problems from affecting his academic performance so appropriate assistance is offered to him.