9th June – Accounts from Inside

Hlaing Thayar, Yangon—Following the trips to the delta region, our group’s attention turned to the cyclone victims in the outskirts of Yangon. Before the donation day, we made two assessment trips to the victims in Hlaing Thayar Township which is located in the northern part of Yangon. To our surprise, we found that their living conditions were shocking and extremely worse than the villages we reached in our previous trips. Since they cannot cheaply get bamboos and thatches like people we met in the delta, they all are living in makeshift huts that are mere assortments of bamboo, grass and plastic sheets. Some hats have no roof whatever, either plastic or grass. Many seem to be facing starvation, and some people and children are obviously sick with all of them having no access to clean water or medical care. After the cyclone hit their houses, many of them moved to the nearby monasteries, schools and construction sites. All these places they all have been forced to leave and seek their own shelter. According to the victims, the government allowed them to build temporary shelters on a concrete lane, but they received no particular help from the government or any NGO. While the attention is concentrated on the delta region, few donors have come to their help. But they said that World Vision recently distributed tarpaulins to some of them. This is the general picture of cyclone victims in Hlaing Thayar.

How did we decide to donate what? On our assessment trips, we carefully looked at their huts and noted down the estimated costs of housing materials for each household. We really wanted to buy them bamboos and plastic sheets. But we did not do that, believing many of them who are eager to start small businesses would re-sell those materials at a lower price, hence the loss to our efforts. Then we thought of giving them cash, but we did not do that too. As different households need different amount of cash, our financial assistance would be different, and this difference would probably make some of the victims feel uncomfortable. So, we increased the amount of food originally planned and made distributions worth of 300,000 Ks. For fifty households, we bought 4 bags of rice that cost us (K 76000), 2 bags of beans (K 125,000) and fish paste (K 22,500). The material contributions we received include 100 dresses and snacks. Our volunteer doctor also checked the sick people, using the medicines we bought on our previous trip.

What challenges we faced? In order to avoid any clashes with the local authorities, we had the people gather in the compound of nearby monastery and made quiet distribution. It was raining very hard. People are living in the rain. Even before the distribution was over, some have boiled the beans we donated and were already preparing their lunch. Into over one month since Nargis hit our country, many victims have not received any significant help from anyone, and individual donors who make up a large part of the rescue operations are starting to get worn out. Yet still, the life of the victims does not improve.

Nyi Zay Min