Myanmar: An Assessment on TEAR Fund's Response

Myanmar Update: Assessment from the field

- TEAR Fund's Response to Cyclone Nargis

Thank you to all those who have given to TEAR Fund's Myanmar Emergency Appeal.
There is still a great need out in the field.
We would like to update you on the situation with an indepth assessment from the field, as below.


1. Relief Capacity
2. TEAR Fund Response
3. Strategic Response: Phase 1
4. Strategic Response: Phase 2
5. First-Hand Account of the disaster

1. TEAR Fund's Myanmar Partnership and Relief Capacity

TEAR Fund's international partner network has a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Myanmar government for its programming, including in the cyclone-affected Mon-State, as well as long established local partners approved to work in the regions worst affected by the cyclone.

We have more than 200 partner staff throughout Myanmar, both expatriate and national, with annual development program budgets averaging $1.7 million.

More than 70 of the core staff are currently engaged in emergency response in the
affected regions, with rapid scale-up now under way for technical, management
and support personnel-such as logistics, finance and project administration.

Our network partnership is highly experienced regionally and worldwide, and has directed emergency response and rehabilitation programming during the Asian tsunami in affected Myanmar, and relief in areas such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Kenya, Chad, Sri Lanka and South Thailand.

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2. TEAR Fund response

To date TEAR Fund's international partnership has assisted more than 40,000 children men and women in Yangon and Ayerayawaddy regions

Emergency Shelter
- Displaced families in emergency camps set-up and managed by local partners
- Orphans living at an orphanage damaged by the cyclone
- Building materials for home repair have been distributed
- Plans underway for 100 bamboo and tin transitional shelters in Yangon

Food Aid
- Distributed 80 Tons (80,000 kilos) of Rice in the first week
- Other commodities provided include beans, oil, salt, fish, instant noodles
- Working through 8 partner organizations; all are distributing food aid
   Bogale Township, Yangon Division and Ayerayawaddy Division

Essential Non-Food items
- Distributed distilled water, biscuits (cookies/crackers), candles, tarpaulin,
oral rehydration salts, mosquito nets

Water and sanitation
- Distributing Water Guard - a chlorine based household water purification
Treatment.
-  Directing water purification efforts
- Providing generators to provide electricity for pumping of water from safe
wells to improve access to clean water for cyclone victims

Medical Response:
- Working with 2 local medical partners in Bogale Township, Yangon Division
- Mobile medical teams providing first aid and surgical care

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3. Strategic response plan:

Phase 1 critical response

1. Provide cash-grants or vender vouchers to affected families for the purchase of
essential items such as tin sheeting or materials for immediate home or well repair or replacement of household goods and / or livelihoods supplies (i.e. fishing gear).
2. Provide immediate support for agricultural recovery
3. Provision of salt-resistant seeds and fertilizers to farmers
4. Restocking of animals, feed and vaccines
5. Rehabilitation of embankments, irrigation schemes and animal shelters in
6. Children's trauma recovery support
7. Basic support for Myanmar staff members and families impacted