The shocks have damaged homes, schools, health facilities and water supplies in urban centers that are home to hundreds of thousands of children.
We are working with our partners to provide access to safe water, hygiene kits, vaccines and medical care, as well as safe spaces for children and families. Last week, 80 tonnes of life-saving supplies arrived in Yangon, Myanmar, with more to follow.
Donate now to help children in Myanmar
What is happening in Myanmar?
Myanmar’s National Disaster Management Committee has declared a state of emergency in the 6 earthquake-affected areas of Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway, Shan State, Naypyidaw, and Bago. The committee has requested international humanitarian assistance.
It is estimated that over 17 million people in 57 towns have been affected. Initial Rapid Needs Assessments show that the main needs are food, drinking water, healthcare, cash assistance, and emergency shelter.
The earthquakes have worsened an already dire situation in Myanmar. The country is now in its fourth year of escalating conflict, which has displaced more than 3.4 million people. Millions of children are living in fear, displacement, and poverty.
The devastation caused by the earthquakes only adds to the urgent needs of children.
The best way to help Myanmar and the children in crisis is by supporting our appeal. As the situation continues to evolve, our teams are responding in affected areas, working closely with UN agencies, partners and local communities to assess the situation and mobilise immediate response.
Monthly gifts help us and our partners respond quickly to emergencies and support long-term recovery.
£5 could provide 1,786 water purification tablets to purify water.
£10 could provide life-saving therapeutic food for a child for a week.
£27 could provide an emergency shelter for one family, and keep children safe.
Donate monthly today to provide life-saving support to children.
How is UNICEF supporting children and families in Myanmar?
We were the first humanitarian support organisation to land a flight with vital life-saving supplies in Myanmar for children and families following the earthquake. This included emergency health kits, medical supplies, tents, and recreation kits, to be transported to the affected areas. We continue working with our partners to provide more life-saving supplies.
These are some of the ways we are urgently responding, but we need your support to protect more children:
- Providing critical support to affected communities with access to safe water and hygiene kits reaching over 3,550 people.
- Providing essential vaccines and medical care, as well as safe spaces for children and families.
- Providing urgent support to ensure health and nutrition services can continue – sending delivery kits and newborn kits to frontline workers to support 200,000 people over the next three months.
- Ensuring children can maintain their education by supplying notebooks, basic stationery items and learning materials.
- Providing 788 child protection kits with basic items such as clothing and dignity kits.
We urgently need your help. With your donations we can continue to support children in Myanmar. Please donate now.
If you’re in the UK and would prefer to make a donation by phone, you can call our dedicated donation line: 0300 330 5699.
For the first 6 months, monthly donations made to this appeal will go towards funding our work to support children affected by the emergency in Myanmar. After that, donations will go to support our work around the world. In the unlikely events of funds raised exceeding what is needed, or if funds cannot viably be directed to this appeal, we will direct funds to support our work to help keep children safe and healthy around the world.
How to help Myanmar?
Refugees crossing into Bangladesh from Mayanmar and pictures of the ships Dumbarton men built there in the 20th century.
By Lucy Ashton
Scottish aid agency SCIAF, which attracts support from churches across religious denominations in West Dunbartonshire and Argyll, raised almost £3.2m through its annual Wee Box appeal when Myanmar was at the centre of a military coup.
The Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF) which is campaigning to raise more desperately needed cash funds for projects across the world, is again focusing on Mayanmar where 3,000 people died in the most recent earthquake.
Whatever is raised this year by the Wee Box Appeal will be doubled thanks to UK Aid Match funding from the Department for International Development (DfID).
The last campaign focused on Cambodia, but the Glasgow-based charity also recently supported Rohingya families who have fled Myanmar.
Myanmar, formerly Burma, which has a huge Dumbarton connection given that early last century Denny’s shipyard built ships for Burma and sent members of its workforce there to supervise the final elements of construction.
“Every donation made by the public across Scotland will be matched pound for pound by the UK government, meaning we have doubled the difference the public have made to those in need.”
The 2018 campaign told the story of SCIAF’s work supporting poor families to provide for themselves.
The money from DFID will help vulnerable people to grow more food and improve their access to clean water.
The Church of Scotland and aid agencies since the earthquake in Myanmar, formerly Burma, with which Dumbarton still has strong links from the days last century when Denny’s built ships there.
Four years ago, The Very Rev Dr Susan Brown, below right, convener of the Church of Scotland’s Faith Impact Forum, has made the following comment about the military coup in Myanmar: “We were saddened when news broke on Sunday night of the military coup in Myanmar. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other senior members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party have been detained in the capital, Naypyidaw.
“Along with others of goodwill we want all communities in Myanmar to be able to live in safety and freedom.”
Myanmar was under military rule for nearly 50 years from 1962-2011.
She added: “The Church of Scotland has a strong partnership with Presbyterian Church in Myanmar, a small church of some 35,000 members mainly found in Chin State.”
A number of local soldiers, including Major Robert Findlay, of Boturich on Loch Lomondside, and Arthur McWatt, who was captain of Cardross Golf Club, served in Burma during the war and a number of them were taken prisoner and put to work on the notorious Burma railway.
There is reference to the connection between Dumbarton and Burma in AJ Cronin’s novel Hatter’s Castle.
Dumbarton shipyard workers were employed with local craftsmen to build the Irawaddy fleet of low draft boats, which operated in the shallow waters off Burma.
Nick Harvey, SCIAF’s director of fundraising, communications and education, said: “I’d like to thank everyone, including those in schools and parishes throughout Scotland, for taking part in the appeal.
“The money raised will go a long way, and make a huge difference to the lives of many thousands of people who struggle every day due to poverty, conflict or natural disasters.
“This money will provide practical help so they can work their way out of poverty, support themselves and have a brighter future.”
SCIAF provides long term practical support and emergency aid to over 207,000 people in 27 countries including Syria, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and Colombia.
This ship, which was named Burma, was built at William Denny Brothers Leven shipyard in Dumbarton at the beginning of the First World War in 1914.