'I can start my life again'

Battle Creek's Christina Khim, a Burmese refugee and Kellogg Community College graduate who was the first Burmese recipient of Albion College's Distinguished Transfer Student Scholarship, poses at the college this week. / Justin A. Hinkley/The Enquirer

 Burma refugee studying at Albion College

ALBION — Christina Khim knows what it’s like to spend many sleepless nights in a foreign land, always afraid you’ll be sent back to the persecution you fled in your homeland.

She also knows what it’s like to be helped by those who want to make the world a better place. And that’s why the 27-year-old Burmese refugee said she wants to help others.

Now, Khim hopes to add another tool to the toolbox she’s building toward that goal as she pursues a business degree from Albion College. This fall, Khim joined the Britons after being one of two students to receive the college’s Distinguished Transfer Student Scholarship, which covers 75 percent of her tuition and fees.

Khim was the first Burmese student to receive that scholarship, said college spokesman Bobby Lee. He said only five Burmese students are attending the 1,600-student college on student visas.

Khim, who graduated this summer with a general studies associate degree from Kellogg Community College, said she hopes to levy her business degree from Albion into a career managing some sort of nonprofit or business that helps others.

“I would like to do something that will impact people’s life,” the Battle Creek woman said Wednesday in the lobby of her Albion College dormitory. “It has to be something meaningful.”

Khim’s present drive is undoubtedly shaped by her past. When she was 22, Khim and her family fled the oppression in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

“We don’t have human rights,” she said of her homeland. “There’s a lot of oppression, especially when you’re an ethnic minority or part of a minority religion.”

The family went first to Malaysia, where Khim said they lived illegally. During the day, Khim said they were safe working for the International Rescue Committee in a United Nations compound.

But at night, there was always the fear of being arrested and deported back to Myanmar.

“That was always haunting us,” Khim said. “You would hear on the news that this neighborhood had been raided and that neighborhood had been raided. There were nights we couldn’t sleep.”