Myanmar (Burma)
Under military rule, Myanmar’s people remain poor and are getting poorer. One child in ten dies before reaching their fifth birthday. Child trafficking is a big problem. In May 2008, Myanmar (Burma) was struck by Cyclone Nargis. According to the United Nations, nearly 140,000 people died, more than half of them children, and more than 2 million people were directly affected.
- We’ve helped more than half a million people recover from Cyclone Nargis
- We’re helping children in 480 schools move successfully from preschool to primary school
- We’re providing 150 HIV-positive patients with antiretroviral therapy to enable them to stay healthy
Save the Children in Myanmar
We started work in Myanmar in 1995. There are still restrictions on access for international non-governmental organisations (NGOs). We work in 9 of the country’s 14 states and divisions: Kayin, Mon, Shan, Ayeyewaddy, Magway, Bago, Sagaing, Mandalay and Yangon.
We focus on providing early years services for preschool children, reducing the number of children who die from preventable diseases, helping those affected by HIV and AIDS and building up a community-based system of child protection. A great deal of our efforts are focused on helping the huge numbers of people affected by Cyclone Nargis to rebuild their lives.
Our response to Cyclone Nargis
The cyclone devastated farming and fishing as fields were flooded and boats and equipment destroyed. Many parents lost their means to earn a living and are now struggling to feed their families. Some 700,000 homes, 75% of health clinics and more than 4,000 schools were damaged or destroyed. We are working in 14 of the 15 most affected townships in Yangon and the Ayeyewaddy Delta.
We provided immediate help
We provided plastic sheeting for more than 80,000 households, for temporary shelter, distributed more than 2 million kilogrammes of rice, almost 96,000 sachets of oral rehydration salts (essential when people become sick with diarrhoea), 7,000 blankets and almost 14,000 blocks of soap.
We’re keeping children safe
We set up 158 centres where children can play. We trained 257 community volunteers to look after the children and help them recover from their traumatic experiences through games and role play.
We’re helping children go back to school
We’ve repaired 174 schools and distributed 35,800 student kits to 332 primary schools. We’ve helped more than 90,000 pupils in total.
We’re reuniting children with their families
We’ve registered 976 children who have lost their families and have helped 45 find them.
We’re providing healthcare
Working in two townships, we’ve treated 18,000 patients at our three static and 12 mobile clinics. We’re also involved in health education, promoting the importance of hygiene in preventing disease, child immunisation and breastfeeding. We’ve distributed more than 8,000 mosquito nets to prevent malaria.
We’re helping people earn a living
We’ve secured funding to pay local people to rebuild their devastated towns and villages, repairing roads, schools, clinics and homes. More than 27,500 families have benefited. We’re also helping fishing communities replace their boats and nets.
Find out more
- Download the Myanmar country brief (PDF 92KB)
Myanmar related articles
- Friday 8 May 2009 Jasmine’s visit to Burma one year on from Cyclone Nargis
- Jasmine Whitbread, Chief Executive of Save the Children UK, has just returned from Myanmar (Burma) to see what's been achieved in the year since Cyclone Nargis devastated the delta region in 2008 and what work still needs to be done. View her photo diary.
- Saturday 2 May 2009 Burma one year on: how you’ve helped
- Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar (Burma) on 2 May 2008 killing 140,000 people, including 70,000 children. It was the worst natural disaster Myanmar had ever experienced, affecting 2.4 million people.
- Monday 17 November 2008 Six months on from cyclone Nargis, we help 100,000 children get back to school
- New report highlights that education still is not viewed as a critical part of every humanitarian response
- Friday 1 August 2008 Burma three months on: Food shortages and earning a living biggest challenge
- Burmese children and their families are still in need of international assistance to help rebuild their lives, three months after Cyclone Nargis devastated the country.
- Thursday 5 June 2008 Burma one month on: Aid getting through but thousands of children need help to rebuild their lives
- As families affected by Cyclone Nargis continue their struggle to recover from the disaster, Save the Children, one of the biggest aid agencies operating in Myanmar (Burma), is focusing its attention on getting children back to school.
