Gangaw: Winter is Coming
Although little known outside the country, the Magway region, which lies in the heartland of Myanmar, is one of the more important geographical places in the country today, as the discussion with May illustrated. The rise of defense forces in the hilly outskirts of the city combined with a brutal and repeated crackdown by the military has resulted in a perfect storm of humanitarian crisis. May and her friends have risked their lives to step in and do all they can to help the growing numbers of people who are simply trying to stay alive. From the military assaults to the looming starvation to exposure from having to flee their homes, the risks are extreme. In this excerpt, she describes how their group is trying to respond despite the near impossible circumstances. Better Burma has been providing funds to May’s group since the February coup, but we are limited in what we can give based on the support of donors. So, please consider a contribution so we can continue supporting groups like May’s across the country in their hour of need.
“This is not normal situation, it is an emergency! A disaster! So we need an emergency response. Our will people suffer from hunger if their dry rations run out.”
May: I have very close contacts in the Gangaw region. The military closed many of the logistical routes, so my contacts are secretly finding new routes to transport rice and other basic food items. So the first thing is the transportation and logistics. The second thing is that winter is coming. So the people from the IDP camps need blankets and shelter. There are people from all ages, from children to old age. The Ganagaw region is quite cooler than other cities in Magway, so when winter is coming, they need more blankets and warm jackets, and shelter for their health. The third item is rice. You might know that rice is the staple food of Myanmar. The farmers in Gangaw cultivate rice, and soon it will be harvest time. But my contact said that with the attacks between the local defense force and the military, if there is a battle between them, then the farmers cannot harvest their crops and the rice problem might become a very hot topic, because if people do not get any staple foods or basic food, they will have hunger. So I think currently that's the main problem.
Host: I see you've been leading some fundraising for these camps. How's that going?
May: I'm actually contacting your funding organization (Better Burma), I also wrote some proposals, but we are still waiting for the reply from the other organizations. For organizations like World Vision, they really they want to support provisions to people in the affected areas. But the thing is that they and the UN has a lot of procedures, so it takes a long time to get the assistance to the IDP people. The information flow within our close group is quite fast, as we have people on the ground, so the activities and the assets of local organization like ours, are actually much better than the the actions of the UN organization. So in other words, we can liaise between the needs of the people and those who want to donate. So that might be the strategy of our humanitarian organization.
Host: So you're trying to get this donation from individual donors, with the processing time and the bureaucracy and the forms, especially when your internet and electricity are not good to begin with, and many people are in hiding, and you’re finding that going through the UN can be quite cumbersome and difficult when the need is so great. So you've been trying to do it more informally and more directly. Have you been able to find individual donors given the amount of need and urgency?
May: We do not blame the actions of the UN. We really want their help because they have huge amounts of funding, but the problem is the timing. This is not normal situation, it is an emergency! A disaster! So we need an emergency response. Our people will suffer from hunger if their dry rations run out. We need money in our hand to support them in a timely manner. So, we find funding from the other organizations while we are also trying to coordinate with the UN. But organizations have procedures and a bureaucracy system, so it is not effective in the current situation. So that's why we need to fix the problem by supporting them by responding as fast as we can.