FALLS CHURCH (ABP) — Two months after Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma and a month after a major earthquake shattered much of China's Sichuan province, Baptist-led recovery efforts continue — but conditions remain desperate in many places.
The situation is particularly dire in Burma, according to workers with Baptist World Aid. The organization is the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance.
Since May 3, Rescue24, a search, rescue and relief effort by BWAid, has reported “huge unmet basic needs for the victims of the disaster” in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar.
“Many families are living under makeshift shelter … made of clothes, branches of trees or even under debris,” BWAid Rescue24 workers noted, in a 25-page report to the BWA.
The most urgent needs are food, drinking water, hygiene products, mental-health support, shelter and livelihood support, according to the report. Most of the water sources were destroyed or contaminated, and people have no means to store drinking water.
Getting aid into the disaster zones has been difficult — due to the mountainous terrain of the affected region in China and the reported intransigence of the Myanmar government. Burmese authorities have confiscated some relief funds and have refused to provide travel visas for foreign aid workers, said David Harding, disaster response coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
But organizations such as the American Baptist Churches USA are finding ways around this problem. The ABC had affiliated workers in place in Burma before the storm. American Baptists are working in partnership with the Myanmar Baptist Convention. “We respond to their needs versus telling them what to do,” said Lisa Rothenberger, ABC's world-relief officer, adding that the Myanmar convention is “very grateful and appreciative of our partnership.”
The CBF is also channeling relief efforts through its existing partnerships with Myanmar Baptists. “We are very pleased with the partnership that we have,” Harding said. The goal is to empower the local churches in the country to meet the human needs. But much will be asked of Burmese Baptists as recovery effort drag on. Burma's rainy season, which began in May and lasts until November, is worsening living conditions for many cyclone survivors.
BWAid personnel continue to work closely with the Myanmar convention's Nargis Relief and Rehabilitation Central Committee. The convention daily sends food, potable water, clothing, mosquito nets and medicine to almost 100,000 survivors in the Irrawaddy River Delta, the region hit hardest by the storm.
Noting the number of Burmese left homeless and jobless by the cyclone, the convention's Women's Department plans to begin vocational training in some of the hardest-hit areas.
Baptist Global Relief, the Southern Baptist relief arm, continues efforts in the region as well. Like their international Baptist counterparts, they are working primarily through Burmese nationals via the Myanmar Christian Coalition for Cyclone Relief, a multi-denominational relief effort.
The coalition has developed a six-point plan for responding to the disaster. It includes reconstructing churches, providing food kits, repairing and replacing housing, providing family kits of essential items, providing school supplies and uniforms, and assisting farmers and business people to rebuild their livelihoods.
BGR has committed more than $1 million of its world-hunger and relief funds to Myanmar recovery. It has been hard, but the organization has “been able to release a number of projects and funds,” said Jeff Palmer, the group's executive director.
But the needs remain immense. In Burma, casualty estimates vary widely, with figures ranging from 134,000 to near 1 million dead. Several million more are estimated to have suffered directly from the cyclone.
Many of those were Baptists. According to the Myanmar convention, more than 10,000 Burmese Baptists have been confirmed dead, and more than 94,000 were severely affected by Nargis.