Journeys Within Our Community: Nonprofit, Charity, and Philanthropy in Cambodia and Southeast Asia

Cyclone Nargis Relief Effort


		Putting your donations to work

		JWOC staff have been able to coordinate a highly successful relief effort in Myanmar by working with our local contacts to facilitate getting aid supplies into the delta region. Despite the Myanmar authorities blockade against foreign aid workers, we have been able to bypass the checkpoints and bring large amounts of rice and cooking oil to some of the hardest hit villages deep in the delta. Additionally we have provided aid to an orphanage which has been inundated with children whose parents were killed in the cyclone. Please continue reading to hear the stories of what we saw and accomplished...

Inside the Delta

June 10, 2008

We left at 3 am in the morning and took a bus 5 hours south of Yangon into the Irrawaddy Delta. There were approximately 30 local Burmese workers in our group some of whom were recent university graduates while others were older professionals who worked in Yangon. We made it through the checkpoints with only a few questions at each stop before being waved on. If foreign aid workers are seen their name and passport information is written down and then they are turned away. It was very important that our group did not appear as aid workers and instead was just a mix of locals going home or to visit family. We only took with us what supplies could be carried in a personal bag. The rest of the supplies had already been arranged at a port town inside the delta.

As we made our way into the delta you could certainly see the effects of Nargis everywhere. Power lines were laying on the ground, trees were broken, and most houses had a significant amount of damage. It is raining everyday now which only adds to the misery of the situation. The roads are clear of water and debris but the fields on all sides are still underwater for the most part. Occassionally we passed soldiers and police but they never seemed to be doing anything. There were at least three locations I saw that had been set up as shelter camps by the government. They all looked very orderly with the tents all in organized rows but none of them had more than 40 tents set up and only one camp actually had people staying in it. The team told me that it was a “model camp” used to show the UN representatives.

After a 5 hour bus ride, we came to a small port town where most of the supplies and boats had been arranged in advance. There were no government soldiers or police at the port so I was able to walk about freely. We took two long boats on a 3 hour trip down the river towards the sea. One boat was stocked with about 100 large bags of rice, cooking oil, cooking pots, blankets, and clothes. With our team we had a Burmese doctor who cared for sick children and adults in each village. We stopped at a total of five villages as we headed towards the coastline. The last place we stopped was only a couple of miles from the sea and was the last village in that part of the delta. It looked to have about 20 small thatch huts although there were more on the outskirts of the village. The people living there had precious little before Nargis and now since the storm they had nothing but the clothes they wore.

They were incredibly happy to see us as the team had been there once already two weeks earlier. The children ran to call all the adults and then came running back to the boats smiling and waving. We gave them enough rice to last about a week for each family, along with cooking pots and cooking oil. The head man at each village made sure the rice and other supplies were divided up evenly and sufficient for each household. We passed out the hundreds of vitamin and electrolyte packets that a donor had given. The children as usual loved my digital camera and couldn’t get enough of taking pictures with it.

The villagers told me that more than 40 people had been killed in the 10 foot wall of water that swept through that area during the cyclone. One mother told me she had lost her 2 year old child, a boy told me all four of his brothers were gone, and a grandfather was caring for his nearly 2 year old granddaughter after the little girl’s parents and siblings had all died. Most of their bodies were never found and were most likely washed out to sea.

After all the supplies had been unloaded and it was time to go we began making our way through the mud back to our boat. One little boy who had stayed by my side the entire time took my hand in his and shook it with a giant smile on his face. As the boat powered up the people lined the embankment smiling and waving us off grateful to know they would not go hungry this week and perhaps hoping that they would see us again soon.

JWOC also delivered supplies and aid to the Mingalar Parahita Orphanage and School in the delta. The orphanage had 200 children before the cyclone and now they have almost 300 children who they are sheltering, feeding, clothing, and educating. To read more about our work with the orphanage please visit the Mingalar Parahita Orphanage page.