Miles Collins

Helping the local communities in cyclone ravaged Myanmar

As some of you may recall I have a vested interest in what is happening in Myanmar/Burma. The news of the cyclone which struck an area very close to Hlaing Tharyar was particularly upsetting and until I receive another letter from my sponsored daughter’s parents I shall wonder if she survived the storms or the terrible aftermath.

World Vision, the organisation behind my sponsorship have sent me an update on the situation across the country and I thought I would share a few facts and figures with you. The words are taken straight from their newsletter and to their credit they do not dwell on the bad but highlight the good to come from outside help. I do believe these occasional blog posts serve a useful purpose in so much that they can offer a timely reminder to those of us sat in front of a home PC that life isn’t that bad after all, well it does for me anyway…

“Hlaing Tharyar marked World Aids Day with events in villages across the Area Development Programme (ADP). Local HIV-positive children and those whose parents had died of AIDS produced artwork which was displayed on large billboards at road junctions, telling everyone how to prevent the spread of the HIV virus”

“Child Protection Day was also celebrated in style in the ADP with 1,000 children-all orphans-taking part in a huge festival of games and activities.” Human trafficking is a huge problem in Myanmar and World Vision give support to victims and their families.

“Myanmar has a population of 47.4 million of which 330,000 live with HIV and AIDS. The infant mortality rate is 50.7 per 1,000 whilst 25% of the population live below the poverty line”

“Approximately 1.2 million children are trafficked across borders each year. They are sold for many purposes: domestic work, prostitution, begging or for organ transplants. Some of them from South-East Asia make it as far as the UK”

World Vision have been busy in the area, in the last twelve months they have made the following possible:

3,535 parents learnt about the prevention and treatment of diarrhoea and 4,945 learnt about the prevention of dengue fever.

350 disabled people enjoyed a programme of games and singing competitions on International Disabled Day.

450 people attended disaster preparedness sessions focusing on fire prevention.

38 basic first aid kits have been provided to schools.

31 children enjoyed a trip to the zoo as part of their pre-school learning.

The newsletter highlights the wonderful work being carried out by external aid agencies and for me personally, they have provided emergency help to those whose homes were destroyed by the tornadoes in Hlaing Tharyar West. I just hope that one of those homes helped was May Mi Mi’s.