Cazenovia-based, Phua Naing (right), a resettled refugee from Burma, helps demonstrate a teaching skill to 12 new tutors in a recent training session organized by Madison County Reads Ahead. Morris Atwood, director of this volunteer adult literacy organization, and Carla Zimmerman, a literacy coordinator at Cazenovia Public Library, direct the exercise.
Cazenovia Public Library news
By Carla Zimmerman
(Cazenovia, NY – July 2011) It was a long and uncertain journey that brought Phua Naing to Cazenovia in 2008. Naing, a member of the Burmese Chin minority who fled Burma in 2004, spent four years in Malaysia before finally arriving in Central New York.
With help from local agencies, Naing found a job, settled in Cazenovia and began to receive tutoring in English at the Cazenovia Public Library.
However, during a recent tutor training session organized by Madison County Reads Ahead, Naing was doing the teaching. The volunteer organization that provides adult literacy programs, asked Naing to demonstrate a basic English as a second language teaching skill to 12 new tutors.
Morris Atwood, director of Reads Ahead, and Carla Zimmerman, a literacy coordinator at the Cazenovia Public Library, directed the exercise.
Naing came to Syracuse and settled in Cazenovia in 2008 with the help of Eastern Hills Bible Church in Manlius. He went to work for Stickley Furniture and in 2010 married his Burmese wife, Sung Par, who came to the area that same year.
Naing is from the Chin region in Burma. He speaks Zotung and Burmese and is now working with Cazenovia Public Library literacy coordinator Carla Zimmerman to fine-tune his English language skills.
It’s wonderful how Phua participates in the circle of learning and teaching.
Reads Ahead always needs more volunteers to tutor in its ESL, basic literacy and GED programs. For more information, call (315) 655-9322.
Carla Zimmerman is Cazenovia Public Library literacy coordinator.
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