Your Donations Support Working Class CDM Families
While high-level defections play a critical role in the resistance to Myanmar’s junta, working class families who have joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) are often the most vulnerable. Janitors, maintenance workers, railcar loaders, and others performing services vital to the junta’s ability to operate in Myanmar survived on less than about $5 a day before the coup, and many, including young women, were families’ sole wage earners. It is worth noting that prior to the coup, many of these working class families had expected to see a modest increase in their salaries, even despite the impact of COVID, based on the overall economic growth in the country since the democratic transition.
Government workers in Yangon’s working-class suburbs, including maintenance workers on Yangon’s circular train and staff of Yangon’s public hospitals, were among the first to walk off their jobs in resistance to the junta in February. Now, many have been without income for three months while they struggle to survive in an economy ground to a halt.
Your donation has been channeled to a group of brave community volunteers who are doing whatever it takes to provide vital assistance to families in Yangon’s working-class communities, including directly to those who have walked off government jobs to support CDM. Every week, they coordinate with other volunteers and activist groups in Yangon to identify the areas where help is needed most- then do whatever it takes to provide it. While their strategies largely can’t be shared, in the interest of protecting whatever safety still exists for these brave young people, they have been able to successfully move inside areas closely monitored by the military, providing food, cash, basic supplies, phone cards and other essentials. Often, they are on-the-ground and among the first to know when workers and their families will be targeted in or near government hospitals, railway stations, staff housing, and other facilities. To achieve this, the volunteers have made profound personal sacrifices for their belief that CDM is vital to defeat of the junta and that “WE CAN WIN.” Two of these have been arrested, businesses and family members’ homes have been raided, and most are now living separately from their loved ones.
Along with provisions which enable these brave families to survive another week or two, these volunteers also bring a connection with the outside world, news, and hope. As one volunteer explained, “When I walk up to a house, or a small place people are staying, I try to think of a way to tease them.” The jokes do not translate well: “I might say, grandma, why are you staying in this terrible place in your old age? No way you can survive alone here!”
“Or, Sister, can’t you bother to give your children any slippers?”
But, when those jokes come with a smile and concrete help, they embody a moving ability to find joy, levity, and profound appreciation in despite of the horrors which have occurred in these communities since February 1. Without fail, your donation is deeply valued by our volunteers and the families they help, not only because of desperate practical need, but for the reminder that they do not stand alone in their struggle.
