In Myanmar, Oxfam Partner Saves Lives and Builds a Sense of Community
13 May 2008
Food, medicine, and fuel for search and rescue missions are among the life-saving supplies Oxfam’s local partner is now delivering in the storm-battered region of Myanmar.
With a crew of 29 staffers and 62 volunteers, Oxfam’s local partners have been rushing life-saving aid to more than 68,000 survivors of the devastating cyclone that slammed into Myanmar 10 days ago.
While international aid agencies wait for visas to enter the country so they can begin their emergency operations, five of Oxfam’s local partners are spending more than $100,000 a day on relief supplies—including fuel for search and rescue missions, food, and medicine—for distribution to displaced people. One of the locations is so remote—the island of Pyin Kha Yai—that the nearest community is a 10-hour boat ride away. Everything on that island has been destroyed.
“Experience has shown us that the most effective and timely response can be where local organizations are on the ground and ready to mobilize,” says Mike Delaney, Oxfam America’s director of humanitarian response. “In Myanmar, in the wake of this immense tradgedy, it is the people themselves, facing incredible odds, that have risen to the challenge and are helping to save the most vulnerable.”
But even as aid workers deliver sacks of rice, collects blankets, and tends to the medical needs of hundreds of patients, more survivors continue to make their way to camps for displaced people. Most unsettling, perhaps, is the number of orphans whose ranks continue to grow each day. In one location alone, Myaungmya, an Oxfam partner has counted more than 1,000 children who have no caregivers. In another location, Pathein, there are more than 500 children of different ages who are now orphans.
An Oxfam partner has been recruiting teachers—at least seven so far—to help run kindergarten programs in the camps. Local authorities have granted them, together with a variety of church organizations, official permission to run educational activities for the children.
In addition, they are continuing to identify other people who can help provide care for children who have lost their parents and families. One strategy is to assign groups of older people to look after groups of younger ones. And sensitive to the variety of religious needs among the children, Oxfam's partner is also making sure that there is space for children to pray in the way they are accustomed to.
Numbers of Displaced People Grow
In Myaumya, the number of relief camps has grown to 27, up from 22. Oxfam's partner has been sending boats into the flooded areas around Myaumya in a search for survivors, and in recent days has rescued 500 people from the lowest part of the delta.
In Pathein, there are now four camps with more than 3,000 survivors spread between them. Together with both local leaders and church leaders, they have formed a relief committee. It planned to collect rice, salt, and oil from local businessmen who have offered to donate food on a short-term basis. Committee members were also helping to prepare sites for temporary rainwater collection tanks.
In Laputta, where 27 relief camps have been set up in a series of monasteries and schools as well as in a mosque and in a forestry compound, many of the 30,000 survivors arrived barefoot. Among those camps, there is an urgent need for medicines, such as antibiotics, as well as food. Workers are now collecting food and footwear for the displaced people.
In Bogolay, Oxfam's partner sent in a medical team that has now treated more than 700 patients. A second medical team will be dispatched to Amar sub-township near Bogalay—one of the areas badly affected by the cyclone. Survivors there will also be getting a shipment of relief packages. Each of the 100 packages contains a bottle of cooking oil, salt, medicine, a mosquito net, candles, a flash light and batteries.
