Source: Rebecca Johnny
Becoming a flight attendant might not be a new thing for some other communities but for the Karen ethnic group from Burma also known as Myanmar, of course, it is a rare thing.
Karen is one of the ethnic groups that suffers from the civil war in Myanmar and seeks refugee in neighboring countries such as Thailand, and which many of them are stateless.
Like many other Karen refugees and migrants in Australia, Rebecca Johnny and her sister have to learn English at a language school when they first arrived in Melbourne.
"I arrived in Australia on April 13, 2005, from Mae Sot [a town in Thailand]. I came with my two sisters, one brother and me, and then my mum and my dad. We lived in Hoppers Crossing. When we first came to Australia, me and my elder sister, we went to Footscray Language School to learn English. After that, we went to a normal primary school, at Bellbridge Primary school to continue our education. After that, we moved to Werribee. For our high school, we went to Wyndham Central College."
When asked about why she chose to study a flight attendant course, Rebecca has requested to explain it in English.
"I wanted to be a flight attendant because it has been always my childhood dream. And I believe that I wanted to do this course because I want to serve customers. I just want to make them happy and have the experience of serving customers up in the air. [I want the customers to] walk out of like my aircraft with a happy face. And I wanted just be the person who cares for others and provide them with what they need."
Rebecca and her group recently went to New Zealand for field practice.
Source: Rebecca Johnny
"We're learning about how to serve customers. And learning the safety and security procedures, we went to New Zealand to practice on a real airplane. We went with Qantas airline but we practice in an aircraft. We have to command people when there's an emergency. We have to evacuate emergency practice. We did that one and the compression drill, and we did customers serving on board as well."
When asked about her feeling of doing the course, this is what Rebecca says.
"Oh…very excited, I am very excited for this course. I just pray that I will get a job from doing this and just complete my dream."
