Disabled and collecting fees to use a public toilet in a busy Yangon market was not how Kyaw Kyaw Oo imagined the life of a soldier when he lied about his age to join the Myanmar army at 16.
Four years later, a land mine blast tore through his legs during fighting in the country's east. He nearly died from an infection after an eight-day journey to hospital and lost both his legs.
Discharged in 1999, he was unemployed and living at home, relying on his aging parents for support. In 2008 he moved to Yangon, the country's largest city, where an official "had pity" on him and helped him get a job at the market.