It has been three months since Cyclone Nargis ripped through Myanmar leaving 138,000 dead or missing, 800,000 homeless and affecting 2.4 million people. Drawing on its experience of running the biggest international aid agency response in the country, Save the Children outlines the three key issues facing Myanmar's children.

Read about:

Food

Future (livelihoods)

Funding

View the video by Adam Robinson, tracking our progress and challenges

Hear the interview with Save the Children's Andrew Kirkwood and Vincent Dowd from the BBC

Food Fears

Families’ food stocks are running out. In a recent assessment 55 per cent of families surveyed in 291 villages in the delta said they currently had less than one day of food left and had no stocks to fall back on.

The window of opportunity for planting crops has now closed. It’s too late to give seeds to farmers as the monsoon rains and the planting season are over. Farmers had less seed than they needed, and in some areas possibly only 50% of the rice paddy has been planted. Many farmers may have to wait until November 2009 for their next decent harvest and will struggle to find enough food to feed their children, causing malnutrition rates to rise. We must get fertiliser and other support to farmers to ensure the harvest is as good as possible.

The fishing industry, the second most important source of income and food in the delta, was devastated by the cyclone. Around 44 per cent of small boats and 70 per cent of fishing gear was lost and very little has been replaced. In the southern parts of the delta, which were the worst affected, around 50 per cent of people are particularly reliant on fishing – both for income and as a major source of protein.

In 2006, Save the Children found that even before the cyclone, the price of feeding an average family of five a healthy diet was out of reach for the poorest families. At that time, a minimum healthy diet cost $1.15 a day but the average daily wage was only $1.04. The cyclone, coupled with escalating global food prices, has exacerbated this problem. Assessments have indicated that the price of some foods in local markets has increased by more than 50 per cent.

Save the Children knows that escalating levels of malnutrition are a real risk after a natural disaster. Teams from Save the Children have screened 1,127 young children for malnutrition in two locations in the delta. Rates varied between the two sites, indicating some pockets of malnutrition. Save the Children will continue to monitor this closely and respond as necessary with highly nutritious food supplements to help these vulnerable children.

Filling this hunger gap is vitally important. It’s not too late to help farmers with fertilisers, which will be useful until the end of August to give crops that have already been planted a good chance of growing. Providing families with fishing equipment can make a real difference and enable fishermen to get back to work.

To make sure families do not go hungry it will take a combination of providing direct food aid to some and helping those who can to get back to work. If these needs are not met the number of malnourished children could rise to emergency levels.

Save the Children is aiming to distribute more than 7,000 metric tonnes of food to more than 150,000 people in the delta over the next three months. We have also a launched a rapid livelihoods support programme which is providing support in the form of fertilizer, fishing nets and equipment, diesel for power tillers etc. We believe this will help up to 120,000 people through getting livelihoods up and running again.

FOOD FACTS

42% of households lost all of their food stocks in the cyclone making them more vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition
27% of farmers had enough seeds, less than 20% had enough fertilizer and 20% of villages had enough animals or equipment to prepare their land so the agriculture industry has taken a massive hit
74% of households had inadequate access to clean drinking water, which raises the risk of water-borne diseases like diarrhoea.

Fears for the Future

Around 83 per cent of the families in the delta region affected by the cyclone were living in poverty before the cyclone and unemployment levels are creeping up . Families will need help to get back on their feet in order to feed their children and rebuild their lives.

Save the Children’s knows that giving parents back their livelihoods and supporting communities is vital to protecting children from further harm.

When traditional ways of making a living are destroyed, families face difficult choices to make ends meet. There are already reports of children being withdrawn from school because their parents can’t afford to pay their fees and Save the Children’s teams on the ground say that children are accompanying parents to collect relief supplies.

Poverty can force families to put their children to work, often in dangerous jobs. Vulnerable children are also prone to trafficking and there have been reports of brokers and traffickers in areas where displaced families are living. Some children may leave their homes in the villages and head to the towns to look for work. Separated from their parents, they are at risk of exploitation and abuse.

Immediately after the cyclone, massive numbers of people moved out of the southern parts of the delta to camps and temporary shelters further inland. These camps were then closed quickly, creating a second wave of displacement and further separation of children.

For those children who were separated from their families or even orphaned by the cyclone, the future is uncertain. The number of children’s homes and orphanages is on the rise but it is not only orphans who end up living there. Children whose parents are still alive are being sent to institutions because nobody has yet traced their parents or extended families, and those currently looking after them can’t afford to continue to support them

After the cyclone communities rallied round to help vulnerable children and lots of spontaneous fostering took place. Save the Children believes that this form of care is best for a child after an emergency but foster families and communities need to be supported in order to cope with the cost of looking after another child. Save the Children is working to support extended families and others to look after these children, and is working hard to trace children’s parents and extended family members so that they can be reunited and children can grow up in families instead of in a large institution.

Save the Children is providing school supplies, repairing schools and setting up temporary schools to help make sure children’s lives get back to normal as soon as possible and that their education does not suffer.

Funding Fears

Aid agencies like Save the Children working in Burma desperately need more money to be able to continuing helping the cyclone survivors to rebuild their lives. Many donors have been reluctant to give money to Burma for fears their assistance would be misappropriated or misused. In May 2008, donors promised they would give more money to the cyclone on two conditions;
improved access to the delta for international relief workers
completion of an independent assessment of the relief needs

Both of those conditions have now been met. Firstly, despite initial reluctance to allow foreigners into the delta region, over 1,800 visas have now been issued to relief workers and permits to travel in the delta are being approved in around four days. Secondly, the publication of the ASEAN-Government Post-Nargis Joint Assessment, referenced in this briefing, was made available to the public on 21 July.

The help Save the Children is giving is truly humanitarian. It is given on the basis of need and not for any political motives. Save the Children has clearly demonstrated that aid given to Myanmar can be effective and make a dramatic difference, whilst still meeting international standards of accountability. If donors break their promises and fail to give generously to the survivors of the cyclone – they will be punishing the children of Myanmar for a government that they have no control over.

Before the cyclone Myanmar was one of the most under-funded emergency situations in the world, Save the Children is concerned that as the spotlight turns away, Burmese children will suffer for a second time because the international community turns its back.

FUNDING FACTS

The United States, with a of GNI per capita of $45,850 has so far pledged $29 million to cyclone Nargis, whereas the Philippines, with a GNI per capita of $3,730 and a developing country at risk of natural disasters itself, has pledged $20 million.
Japan gave $500 million dollars to the tsunami appeal and has so far contributed $11 million to Cyclone Nargis.
During the tsunami every person affected by the disaster received the equivalent of $1,249 in aid. So far the survivors of Cyclone Nargis have received $213.
Myanmar receives about $3 per person per year in overseas development assistance – compared to nearby Laos and Cambodia who receive $45 and $43 respectively –around15 times as much per person.

What you can do:

Donate Online
Download a Myanmar Cyclone Donation Form [Adobe PDF, 851.4 Kb] and post it or fax it to us, or
Call our toll free number 0800 167 168 to donate over the phone