Roads to a better life
by Vincent Ciccarello
We
tend to take things like surfaced roads, line markings and traffic lights
for granted. But for second year civil engineering student Mawi, who comes
from a hilly state in Burma where it can take 12 hours to travel 120 km and
every journey requires a tyre change, the quality of Australian transport
infrastructure was nothing short of a revelation.
Arriving here as a refugee in 2003 to join her politician father who had
fled their home three years earlier, Mawi experienced first-hand the
high standard of living her friends had told her others enjoyed overseas.
"We lived in a very poor, mostly farming area, with very poor transportation," Mawi said. "The electricity supply was also very bad. So I was amazed at the roads, buildings and structures here. It showed me we can improve people’s living standards by improving these things."
Civil engineering beckoned.
"I
had no opportunity to study something like this in Burma," she said. "When I
studied chemistry at school, we didn’t even have a lab. I’d never really
seen an engineer, only technicians."
Mawi was encouraged to apply for and was awarded the DTEI Sylvia Birdseye Undergraduate Scholarship for Women. The award, which also allows for work experience with DTEI, aligns perfectly with her interest in transportation.
"In my first summer vacation I worked in field services with Transport SA, where I would go on construction sites with the project manager. I got a good understanding of how things are done and how technology is used," Mawi said.
Her student experience has opened her eyes to issues of environmental sustainability, too.
"Burma has a lot of natural resources but we rely on timber as fuel for many things," she said. "You can see the hillsides are bare where trees have been cut down."
Mawi spoke of the differences between life in her country of birth and Australia, and in the way it has affected her imagination and thinking. Whether she will ever work in Burma as a civil engineer is hard to know.
"You cannot separate politics from life or life from politics in Burma," she said. "I first would like to work in transport in Australia. I want to work for civilisation."