Two years after cyclone Nargis, Malteser International - ongoing reconstruction and rehabilitation of the country
Cologne - “The majority of the people are still struggling for daily survival. A lot of them do not yet have a solid source of income“, reports Sandra Harlass, Senior Desk Officer Myanmar of Malteser International, the relief service of the Order of Malta for worldwide humanitarian aid.
“The present situation cannot be compared to the life and income situation before cyclone Nargis hit the country on 2 Mai 2008. To give an example: At the moment, no one can afford to buy drinking water.”
Therefore, at request of the government and the affected population Malteser International distributes purified drinking water by boats to areas with acute water shortage in the dry seasons.
In its rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes, Malteser International focuses on the sectors of health, WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) and disaster risk reduction. The rehabilitation in the most affected Irrawaddy delta is far from being completed.
”We are especially concentrating on mother-child care,“ Harlass continues. Malteser International supports vaccination campaigns by providing the midwifes with boats and fuel. To reduce the high maternal and infant mortality rate, Malteser International also facilitates trainings of auxiliary midwifes and provides them with the equipment needed for a safe delivery.
“The set-up of mother-child groups has proven to be especially useful. In regular meetings, pregnant women come together in order to exchange experiences, to get advice and to prepare themselves for delivery. Each group has launched an emergency referral fund to ensure timely referral to a hospital in case of complications during delivery,” the Malteser International expert explains.
To ensure sustainable drinking water supply and improve the hygiene situation, Malteser International has rehabilitated more than 60 ponds that had been contaminated by the floods as well as 20 wells in over 120 villages. These structural measures are embedded in a comprehensive awareness raising programme about the safe handling of drinking water as well as the relation between hygiene, sanitation and water-related diseases.
“Another essential part of our work in the region is disaster risk reduction and disaster preparedness,” Harlass points out. So far, four schools and six health centres were built or rebuilt. In close cooperation with the communities, Malteser International furthermore conducts participatory risk analysis to design disaster preparedness plans. To implement these plans each village sets up local disaster risk management committees that are trained by Malteser International staff in first aid, search and rescue as well as disaster risk management.
In May 2009 Malteser International had handed over health centres that had already been reconstructed to the local health authorities on “Middle Island” in the Irrawaddy Delta.
The reconstruction and rehabilitation measures of Malteser International are financially supported among others by Caritas International as well as by the Australian and German Government. Malteser International assumes that from the end of 2011 on the local communities will be in a position to manage the projects independently.
In total, Malteser International up to now has provided relief for more than 275,000 people after cyclone Nargis struck the country. Nargis was one of the most disastrous tropical storms since record-keeping began. It claimed 140,000 lives and left 1.5 million people homeless.
Malteser International has been working in Myanmar in several regions already since 2001 with currently 350 local and 14 international staff members and was one of the first organisations providing relief after the cyclone.
Attention editors: Sandra Harlass, Malteser International coordinator of the post-Nargis rehabilitation programme is available for interviews. (contact: +49 221 98 22 155).