One month in Myanmar
By Katrin Park, Internal Communications Officer, UNDP

In Bogale, one of the five most cyclone-damaged townships in the delta region, people bathed and washed clothes in the muddy river. The tap water was brown,and there was an outbreak of scabies. There was no Internet connection. UNDP staff used satellite phones to call the Yangon office.

As part of UNDP's immediate crisis response team, I travelled to the delta part of the country. After two hours on a boat, we arrived at one of the pilot villages. UNDP would conduct a community meeting here in a monastery near the river. I climbed up a makeshift ladder and got to the top of the monastery where the villagers had put up tarpaulin sheets using bamboo sticks. The roof was gone. Approximately 200 villagers had come to attend the meeting, and with assistance from the UNDP staff, they spent several hours selecting the early recovery committee members and identifying the most vulnerable families that would receive cash grants to rebuild their livelihoods. Flies clung to me, as I took notes.

During a break, I spoke with one of the women. Thin Thin Aye (pictured left) was 31 and had red stains in all corners of her teeth. She had lost her father, a brother and one of her five children in the storm. She used to cut and sell firewood, but her hand tools had washed away with her house. The family was living on rice rations from the World Food Programme. She said she wanted a fishing net and a boat, so she could catch fish to feed the family. She also explained how the bodies that had once floated in the river had decomposed and sunk to the bottom.

I later asked one of the staff how much a fishing net and boat would cost. A net, he said, usually costs $5; a boat, $30. I left Bogale four days later, knowing that Thin Thin Aye’s family was selected as one of the 30 most vulnerable households, making her eligible to receive a $40 cash grant.CPR

Photo caption: Thin Thin Aye, a beneficiary of the UNDP small grants programme. Source: UNDP Myanmar

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In this Issue

> Sexual violence in Sierra Leone
> Snapshots of Somalia
> One month in Myanmar
> Livelihoods in Liberia
> Building peace in the DRC
> Spotlight on Staff

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