CASEY MORRISON

by Julianne Greco | Indonesia ‘12

Hometown: Berne, New York

PiA fellowship position: ChildFund Laos, Nonghet, Laos (2017-2019) University: Elon University

Current city: Vientiane, Laos

Casey Morrison never expected to spend more than a year in Laos, let alone become a respected expert on gender equality, yet here she is, five years later, feeling more Latioan than anything, fluent in a language she couldn’t speak a word of, and now the 28-year-old has adopted Laotian family members (whom she considers the same as her birth family) scattered across the country’s provinces.

Laos itself was never a part of the plan for Casey, who during her bachelor’s studying Public Health at Elon University, spent her senior year abroad in Vietnam. It was Vietnam that then won her heart and that drove her to apply for a fellowship in the Mekong Delta with PiA, where she intended to return to the beloved host family she had stayed with during her independent research project. However, PiA had other plans, with Casey getting a curveball: “We’re not going to offer you the position in Vietnam. Do you want to go to rural Laos?”

The position would be with ChildFund Laos in the quiet mountainous border town of Nonghet. The remote location was difficult to find the right person for, but coming from a rural setting herself – a childhood with fond memories of hay fields and farming in upstate New York – Casey decided to accept the opportunity. There hadn’t been a Fellow there in years and if she didn’t do it, perhaps there wouldn’t be a future for the fellowship there.

Without a lick of Lao and no way to communicate with anyone when she arrived in Nonghet, Casey became fast friends with her coworker Mo, who she remembers wanting desperately to talk to, though Mo couldn’t speak English. “She was like a mother, but a friend, but sometimes an older sister, sometimes a younger sister. We just have all the relationships in there,” Casey said of Mo, who later became her roommate/Lao cooking instructor/language tutor/farming partner/best friend/sister and everything in between.

Casey’s role at ChildFund evolved greatly over the course of her time in Nonghet, from teaching English to the staff to working with the communications team to doing interviews with youth to later more programming around gender and inclusion. After spending some time beyond her fellowship at ChildFund with an additional year in Xamneua, Huaphanh Province, Casey accepted a position with Care International as a gender advisor in urban Vientiane, where she currently lives in a one-bedroom dormitory with Mo’s niece, Angie (aka Casey’s “sister”). Casey found women’s empowerment work to come naturally and she’s seen it as something of an “ambassadorship,” with her ability to understand both sides. “I could speak in a way that donors can understand but also people in rural areas can understand. And that’s really been my key skill.” That role was later expanded to become “Climate Change Adaptation and Gender Advisor.” Climate change is an even newer issue for Laos than gender equality, but it’s been a smooth transition for Casey to tackle: “It’s about making people see things that they haven’t seen in the past and changing their behaviors accordingly which is really similar to what I was doing as a gender advisor.”

As fulfilling as her work has been with Care, Casey’s heart lies in rural Laos and she’ll soon be leaving Vientiane, taking some time to visit the U.S., but only temporarily. She’ll return to Laos in search of an opportunity that she can do alongside her ultimate goal of self-sufficient farming. And she’ll be bringing her mother, who’s been inspired to go teach English abroad after witnessing her daughter’s deep love for Laos, and has decided on a career change, or rebirth of herself.