Volunteers

Jordan Johnson

Jordan was born and grew up outside of Portland, Oregon. He has been teaching for 11 years. After teaching English in South Korea for two years, Jordan got his Masters degree in teaching. He taught in Washington state and in Beirut, Lebanon. He is now back in the US. Jordan has a heart for serving those who are overlooked.

Jordan enjoys cooking Korean food and baking sourdough bread. He also enjoys looking for and cooking with food he finds in nature. Recently he has been learning a lot about the edible mushrooms that grow all around us.

Wonjae Kang

Wonjae L. Kang is currently working for Immigrants and Refugee non-profit organization for last two and half years after having an engineering management career at Intel Corporation. Wonjae is passionate about how technology can help the non-profit's mission and the people they serve in various ways.

Kelvin Paul

Kelvin is a Computer Engineer who is passionate about educating young minds on the topics of technology and renewable energy. He spent his early childhood in India and attended middle school and high school in Taiwan. Having been raised as a "third-culture kid," Kelvin loves getting to meet people from different cultural backgrounds. Kelvin holds a Bachelor's Degree in Electronics and Computer Engineering and graduated with a Master's Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Portland State University, Portland, OR. He currently resides with his family in Portland and works as a Pre-Silicon Verification Engineer at Siemens Digital Industries Software.

In college, Kelvin led a university club which hosted multiple events to educate student communities in India on the topics of renewable energy and sustainable living. In Taiwan, he volunteered to serve in multiple student outreach programs. Kelvin is driven to continue helping student communities to have a well-rounded education through technology.

Shirley Choo

Shirley was born and raised in Myanmar. She immigrated to the United States of America when she was a teenager. After graduating from high school, she went on to attend the University of California, Berkeley and obtained a B.S. in Biology.

Her passion has always been in the medical field as she grew up in the family with medical backgrounds. Later, she completed the Clinical Lab Scientist program and became one. Since then, she has worked in the laboratory field for more than 30 years. Recently, she retired from a full time position but still works as a per diem staff at one of the medical facilities. She does this because she still enjoys working, knowing that her expertise helps many patients.

Shirley was a Sunday school teacher and a director for over 30 years at a local church and is still volunteering in different areas of the ministries, including Christian Education and Performance ministry. Her hobbies include traveling, swimming, singing and dancing. She loves her motherland Myanmar and wants to help by contributing her talents in teaching English to the people of Myanmar.

Michael and Anna Maloney

Michael and Anna both grew up in Oregon. Michael got his M.A. in Teaching from George Fox University and Anna got her M.A. in TESOL from Multnomah University, with a B.A. in education from Western Oregon University.

They are a young family and currently have one son. They are both elementary school teachers and are passionate about alleviating poverty through education. Specifically, they have the aim of applying their background in education to help disadvantaged children in Myanmar get a better education and a brighter future.

Michael will be working as an English teacher at the international school in Yangon for 2020/2021 school year.

Diana Braunworth

My name is Diana Braunworth. My husband and I have lived in Egypt and in Malawi, Africa. We have four children. I have taught in the classroom for 15 years, 9 years teaching elementary school and 6 years teaching high school students. I have also taught piano in my private studio for 10 years. For 9 years I homeschooled my youngest daughter. Playing piano, reading, cooking, and traveling are some of the things I enjoy doing.

Lydia Khaw

Lydia was born and raised in Oregon. She is studying to be a clinical scientist at local colleges. Lydia has been to Myanmar teaching at an English camp. She has a passion to continue helping the poor students in Myanmar. She makes a wonderful Burmese chicken coconut noodle soup called OHN NO KHAUK SWE.

Pamela Paw

Pam was born and raised in Yangon, Myanmar. She immigrated to the United States in September 1967 with her parents and 7 siblings.

Pam graduated from San Francisco State University with a Clinical Science Degree in June 1975. She was employed with Kaiser Permanente as a Clinical Lab Scientist in Fremont, CA for 31 years. She took an early retirement in 2013 and currently resides in Union City, California.

Having spent her childhood in Yangon, Pam is very passionate about helping the children in that part of the world.

Eduardo Ponce De Leon

Eduardo was born in Lima Peru and he was 15 years old when he came to the US with his parents and 2 brothers. He came to Northern California and attended the last two years of High School, went to a community college, attended UC Berkeley to get his bachelor's degree in Engineering, and he later attended San Jose State for his postgraduate degree in Electrical Engineering.

In 2005, he and his dad moved to Oregon after accepting a job with a high tech firm. He thought that he would be back to the Bay area after 2 years but the nice people and the outdoor activities in the Northwest made him forget about returning to California. He found that besides the many outdoor activities, Portland is a city with many attractions to offer, such as a great symphony, opera, ballet, an MLS soccer team, an NBA team and many festive events throughout the year.

Eduardo is married to Alejandra from Argentina and has a 13 year old daughter. They enjoy the many outdoor activities that the Northwest offers and consider Portland their home despite Eduardo recently starting to work in the Bay area again.

Eduardo became interested in ForgetNot through his relationship with Ernie Khaw. Throughout his life, Eduardo has seen poor children struggle with not having life opportunities to be successful. He has a heart for helping such children and youth. In helping them improve their quality of life, Eduardo believes that in turn they would improve their communities as adults.

Sherri Lee