| This page is dedicated to our dear friends in Burma who so selflessly support our cause, while disaster surrounds them and their own families. Thank you, Min Min, Moe and Mr Early Morning. We couldn't do this without you. |
As you will be aware, more than a year has passed since Cyclone Nargis wreaked its havoc on the Irrawaddy Delta region of Burma. You will recall the devastating impact the cyclone had on the region in general, and in particular on one of the orphanages supported by The Mandalay Projects.
The response at the time from our supporters was magnificent, both in terms of cash donations from friends around the world, and also the time and energy which our local volunteers committed to our relief and redevelopment programme on the ground in Burma.
One year on, we are pleased to provide you with a short update on how, with your support, our work has progressed, and what plans we have for the future.
Our priority in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone was to ensure the safety and health of the children at the Mingalar Parahita orphanage near Twante.
Following on from our early shipments of rice, medicines and other essential items, we have continued to fund a regular supply of rice and vegetables to the orphanage. On a recent visit to Twante, a team from The Mandalay Projects found the children to be in relatively good health, and enjoying regular meals.
The orphanage has now been almost totally rebuilt. We have re-roofed one dormitory (a previous Mandalay Projects building, which survived the cyclone's direct hit) and have added another completely new dormitory of similar size.
The orphanage now has two substantial, safe and relatively comfortable living quarters, one for boys and one for girls. We are planning the addition of a separate dorm for infants later this year.
In addition, we have significantly upgraded the toilet and washing facilities, with new, hygienic chemical toilets and separate wash stands for boys and girls. This has improved the overall sanitation standards of the site, and will hopefully contribute to a reduction in the incidence of water-borne disease.
Although the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis necessitated an immediate, and somewhat tactical, response from us, we have also tried to maintain a strategic perspective in planning the overall work programme at the orphanage. One of our most significant achievements in this context in the past few months has been the completion of a water supply system, which now provides fresh, potable water to all the main buildings in the orphanage compound.
Until the introduction of this system, water was hand-pumped from a relatively shallow, often mosquito-laden, well and then hand-carried in plastic containers to the wash areas and kitchen. Our local engineering partners conducted extensive water purity tests, before sinking a deep bore into the water table, from which our newly-installed petrol-driven pumps draw fresh water into large, aluminium holding tanks. From these tanks, water is pumped along copper pipes throughout the compound. Apart from the obvious improvement in the quality of the water supply, there is the added benefit that the children are now never more than a few metres away from an urn of freshly-drawn water.
All of these projects have of course been completed in partnership with local builders, engineers and workers, so The Mandalay Projects has been contributing in a small way to the local economy in this part of rural Burma.
When we first came across this orphanage in Twante in 2006, there were around 80 resident orphans. Today, that number has swelled to over 300, in part as a direct result of Cyclone Nargis.
As noted above, having provided substantial - and desperately-needed - disaster relief to the children, to their care staff and to the surrounding community, we have gradually shifted our focus to a more strategic development plan for the orphanage, so that it can in time become more self-sufficient.
Infrastructure projects such as the development of the water supply system and the building of hygienic toilets are clearly an important part of this. We will also be looking for longer-term opportunities to support the education and training of the children, much as we have done in the past with other orphanages. As many of you are already aware, our computer room in the MBOA Orphanage in Mandalay has produced a number of computer-literate students, who have gone on to graduate from IT colleges and to secure good jobs in Burma and overseas. One of the girls who worked in the sewing room we created at the Aye Yeik Girls' Orphanage in Mandalay has gone on to set up her own tailoring workshop and is employing some of the other orphans to help her run the business. We would like to think that similar success stories will emanate from our work at Twante in future years.
Separately, we have decided to step up our development programme for The Mandalay Projects itself, and we are currently working with legal counsel to register in Australia as a charity with tax-deductible donation status. We plan to broaden our remit, by engaging in the battle against child trafficking in Asia, although central to this will remain our work in support of orphanages in Burma and elsewhere around the region. We will keep you posted as we move along this path.
In the meantime, we send you our thanks once again for your support, and for your continued interest in the work of The Mandalay Projects.
The Mandalay Projects Team
10 May 2009
If the newspapers in Australia are anything to go by, the plight of hundreds of thousands of Burmese people in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis is no longer particularly newsworthy. There has been the odd mention of the relief efforts of the large international aid agencies, and the occasional comparison drawn between the regimes in Myanmar and in Zimbabwe, but other than that, the attention of the world's media seems to have moved on.
The Burmese government has been boasting of its success in handling the post-cyclone crisis, highlighting the number of foreign aid workers allowed into the country, and the extent of the relief effort undertaken by the military in the Delta region. We make no comment on these claims here, other than to note that our volunteers on the ground in Yangon continue to identify villages where practically no aid has been received, and where people are struggling to survive. More on this below.
Since we last wrote to our supporters, we have been proceeding steadily with our own relief efforts, with a focus on the orphanage at Mingalar Parahita in the township of Twante. You will recall that the orphanage was directly in the path of the cyclone, and that most of its buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged. Our first priority was to replenish the stock of rice and other basic food and medicines, which was achieved fairly quickly thanks to the efforts of our small band of helpers on the ground.
The children who were injured in the storm have been recovering well, and the mood in the orphanage and surrounding community is reportedly quite positive under the circumstances. We continue to monitor the situation closely and will ensure that food stocks are well-maintained.
A lot of basic repair and reconstruction work has already taken place, and it has been encouraging to see teams of workers from the local villages doing what they can to help out, despite the challenges posed by the monsoon season. We mentioned in our last newsletter that we were planning to re-roof the largest surviving building - this was achieved within a few days.
This tactical patch-up work will continue, but we are also moving ahead with our more strategic plans to rebuild the children's dormitories and other buildings which were destroyed or badly damaged. We have engaged local engineers to commence work on a number of projects, including the construction of a 2-storey dorm with toilets and washing facilities and a complete overhaul of the water supply system which, although it has survived the recent crisis, is quite antiquated and not as hygienic as it needs to be, to provide clean water to a seemingly ever-growing population at the orphanage. We have also decided to replenish the stock of Maths and English textbooks at the school attached to the orphanage, taking the view that this is one tangible way to help get the children's lives back to some semblance of normality as soon as possible.
We feel that we have stabilised the situation at the orphanage and, although there is a great deal of work ahead of us in the next few months (to which we have committed a fairly sizeable budget), we feel confident that we have done everything we reasonably could to help the children and the local community.
We have been concerned, however, to learn of several other communities in the Irrawaddy Delta region where practically no external assistance has been received in the two months since Nargis struck. Although our focus has been the orphans of Twante, we have decided to extend the reach of our aid, and have made arrangements to transport rice and other basic supplies to these other communities in the Kungyangone district. This is logistically challenging, thanks to the greater distances involved, and somewhat riskier - there have been reports of local donors and aid workers being arrested by the military for becoming involved in relief work near the villages we are targeting.
Just as an aside, many of you will be aware that 8th August 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of the popular uprising in Burma, during which an estimated 3,000 peaceful protestors were shot dead by government troops. All eyes will be on Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, but we wonder whether the stage may be set for events in Burma once again to steal the headlines...
The recent funding we have received from our supporters around the world has been amazing. Contributions have been received from, amongst other places, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, the UK, the USA, Spain, Turkey, Dubai, Canada and Bermuda - a truly global response.
We assure you that the money you have committed is being used sensibly and productively, and really is making a difference to the lives of the people we are helping in Burma.
We will keep you abreast of our progress from time to time, but meanwhile we send you once again our sincere thanks for all your support.
The Mandalay Projects Team
21st July 2008
www.themandalayprojects.net
All photographs are © M.L. Oo and The Mandalay Projects
The orphanage we have been supporting most recently, Mingalar Parahita in the township of Twante in the Irrawaddy delta region, was right in the path of Cyclone Nargis, and took a direct hit. The orphanage has been badly damaged, and several of the children have been killed by falling trees and masonry. Many of them are injured, some seriously. We estimate that the damage to the orphanage will cost US$ 125,000 to repair. Living conditions in the area are now awful, with an acute shortage of water and food. Shelter is also an issue - the rainy season is about to start and the children at the orphanage are now living in rooms with badly damaged walls and roofs. We have also been saddened by the news of how badly our local volunteer supporters have been affected. The home of one of them has been destroyed, and the village where his family lives is now under water. The images from the stricken area tell their own story:
With the generous help of our supporters around the world, we have already started to distribute rice, tarpaulins, medicines and vitamin tablets to the children at the orphanage. This has lifted the spirits of the children and the staff at the orphanage, and they are all actively involved in the clear-up.
Previous Page | Home | Top
| Mandalay Projects | All contents © Copyright 2005-2009 All rights reserved | Disclaimer | Privacy |
| Page last revised: 28 May 2009 | Web work donated by Neville Bent |
