Feeding Yangon
Marc Shortt has brought his love of Burmese food to the world. So when the coronavirus pandemic struck Myanmar, it was only natural that he would immediately look to what role he could play when it came to food distribution. Working with ‘Food Not Bombs,’ he shares how he gathered donations to support trishaw drivers, street vendors, and the poor unemployed. He describes the effort in more detail here.
“And it was, you know, quite a shocking surprise in some cases, because there were places that actually we didn’t know existed to the extent that they do.”
“So we also buy some fruits and vegetables from market vendors, which we then give away to the people who need it. We also buy some water, which we make sure that we buy from small family-run stores. And then also, we employ some trishaw rider-- sidecar sayas, sidecar guys, who operate in downtown. They've also been quite seriously affected by the COVID situation because they're one of those services where, people will, if they're struggling for money, they'll choose to walk instead of riding a trishaw. Also, trishaws are used a lot in markets to carry food around or help the vendors set up.
Now if those markets have been closed down or moved on, that has a knock-on effect with the trishaw riders as well. So as part of this program we're employing trishaw riders with a donation who come around with our volunteers. They carry the food and they help us distribute it.
So the three main groups that we're trying to help with this are: One, the street food vendors who cook the food, and we pay to cook the food. Two, communities in downtown, the homeless or hungry. And number three is the trishaw guys who are also in need of a little bit of money at the moment. And they're able to use their skills and help us with the distribution too.
Sa Ba, we're always dealing with the street food vendors, on our tours, but also we do some street food catering. So we work together with street food vendors, we find the best street food vendors who make a particular dish. And then altogether we go to events, parties, NGOs, sometimes for embassies... we will cook up the food fresh for people at the party or at the event, and that can be for like 100 or sometimes even 200 people. So have good connections with these vendors and the people in downtown so it wasn't too difficult for us to arrange that side of things.
The problem for us was knowing where is the food most needed, and where are the people that would welcome free food most. So I've known about 'Food Not Bombs' for a while in Yangon. They're doing some really cool stuff, distributing food to people who need it most all over Yangon and various parts outside of Yangon too. They're really nice crew so I contacted one of the guys at the organization who runs it there.
Kyaw Kyaw, he is a quite a famous punk in Yangon, too, and in Myanmar. And yeah, he and his crew were happy to come and join with us. And when we got started, they took us around spots in downtown. And it was, you know, quite a shocking surprise in some cases, because there were places that actually we didn't know existed to the extent that they do. So some little tucked-away communities with 50 people living in pretty poor conditions. Working in jobs which aren't very reliable, and during COVID many of them don't have jobs. Also these people in these communities knew the 'Food Not Bombs' crew before as well and they have a good relationship with them. So 'Food Not Bombs' were able to hook us up with them, and let them know that we're also coming in the afternoons to bring down food too.
So prior to this, I didn't really have any experience working in something like this. So it's been a really incredible experience to see the people that were able to help and to see how happy the people are to receive the food. And yeah, I just think it's really important to do positive stuff and help your local neighborhoods at this time.
Well, no one really knows how long we're going to be feeling the fallout of COVID so we have our donations. We reached a point of $7,000 which is going to allow us to keep going for quite some time. We're also now looking at setting up similar donation in another area of Hledan, which is in Yangon, as well. And it's an area where our friends 'Food Not Bombs' have told us that there's plenty of people who would welcome free food in the evenings. At the moment we're trying to get this all set up. At the moment we're relying on the help of volunteers.”