Rising water & damagedlivelihoods in Myanmar

We’ve never seen flood like this before

In Kawkareik and Kyar-Inn townships in Kayin State, where villagers were heavily affected by floods, 3000 householdsreceived food and non-food items as well as presentations and educational material on hygiene and health.

Responding toextreme flooding inKayin StateSome areas of Kayin State, like manyareas in Myanmar, are prone toflooding during monsoon season.However, in August of 2019,extreme weather caused unseensevere flooding in southernMyanmar. Torrential rains andextreme high water levels in majorrivers caused flooding in the wholearea, loss of lives, major destructionto people’s properties and livelihoodsand damage to key infrastructuresuch as roads and bridges. Adepression in the Bay of Bengalresulted in a continuation ofexcessive rainfall, exacerbating thesituation and impeding support toaffected communities.

In the wider South East area ofMyanmar, close to 80,000 peoplewere affected by floods and severalthousands took refuge in evacuationcentres. Shortly after the flooding,Karen Baptist Convention (KBC)managed to carry out a rapid needsassessment and place a team ofvolunteers in the area. Partnershipwith Christian Aid and funding fromStart Network allowed KBC to scaleup their limited initial response andmeet the critical food and water andsanitation needs of 3000 householdsand include a hygiene awarenesscomponent in the activities.

In Kayin State, which was the worstaffected area, we spoke to severalpeople from two different townships– Kawkareik and Kyar-Inn – abouttheir experience. This documentpresents their reflections.

In the townships of Kawkareik andKyar-Inn we spoke to several peopleabout the extreme weather during the2019 monsoon and its aftermath intheir villages. All stressed the severityof this year’s flooding. In some of theareas in Kayin State, people are usedto flooding, like 61-year old U HlaKyaing from Kawt Pha Lunt villagewho said that “flood used to happenevery two years in the past, andnowadays it happens every year, but Ihave never experienced this before”.Daw May Thu (30) who lives in KantThar Su village with her 6 familymembers, also mentioned howflooding happens every year now andexplained how this year the risingGyaing river “flooded the whole villageand destroyed houses, cow sheds, pighouses, monasteries and farmlands”.U Mg Hla Myint from Nan Kawt Tayvillage mentioned the destruction ofthe village wells, which is a bigproblem because “pure water cannotbe accessed”.

U Saw Htee Hlaing from Taung Sutvillage and Saw Pay Moo who lives in

Whin Kana, however, both said theyhad never experienced flood before.They described the many losses in thearea: destroyed paddy fields andcrops, lost food storages, lost animals,closed schools and a brokensuspension bridge. Besides theincreased intensity and frequency insome areas, in other parts of South-eastern Myanmar flooding is a newphenomenon catching the populationunawares by the disaster.

Coping with rising waterPeople were overwhelmed by the fastrising and powerful water. Daw MayThu said that as the water entered thehouse “we were not able to move ourthings to a safe place in time”. U SawHtee Hlaing describes how even thecows and pigs tried to climb the stairsto find a safe space. He tied somewater buckets to his body and climbedto the roof of the house. He said noone could hear his shouting, althougheven if they had “they did not dare tocome and help”. Saw Pay Moo alsorecalls how people were too scared tohelp others during the heavy storm

Humanitarian Program Myanmar

and rain. But both pointed out howpeople shared food amongst eachother after the flood.

U Hla Kyaing informed the villageleader and after the flood villagerscame and helped him move things to asafer place. Daw Pan Yin also askedher neighbours in Kawt Tar village tohelp and they moved her cows to a dryplace by boat. She said that “thevillagers help and support each other,and my children also took care of me”.U Maung Ngo, from Kawt Go village,described the transportation difficultiesto bring people and things to safety,because there were only few boats.But, villagers helped each other bysharing food and boats.

Coordinated responseLocal organisation Karen BaptistConvention (KBC) has a strongpresence and wide reach in KayinState. Through their humanitarian anddevelopment programme experience,they have built a sound understandingof local communities and their needs.Shortly after the flooding, KBCmanaged to carry out a rapid needsassessment, identify the needs in twotownships and placed a team oftrained volunteers in the area. WithStart Network funding and technicalsupport from Christian Aid they wereable to scale up this response,reaching 29 villages and around 15,000people in Kawkareik and Kyar-Inntownships. For an appropriate andaccountable implementation, KBCcoordinated the activities with itsumbrella organisation Hpa-AnMawlamyaing Association, theDepartments of Social Welfare andDisaster Management and the GeneralAdministration Department. At theYangon level, Christian Aid supportedthe coordination needs from thepreparation of the alert note to theculmination and review of the projectwith other Start funded agencies.

Between the 23rd of August and the2nd of October the team distributedfood and non-food items, distributedhygiene toolkits together with hygieneawareness and promotion activities.The distributed items included rice, oil,beans, salt, tooth paste and brush,soap, sanitary pads a bucket with lidand aqua tabs. Since there wasshortage of safe drinking water due to

flooding of wells, and to preventdisease outbreak, the activities alsofocused on water and sanitation. Thehygiene promotion talks weresupported by materials to inform andeducate people on the need forhygiene and how to practice. U HlaKyaing specifically expressed thisthanks for the health related activities,since “we did not receive healthawareness before”.

Time to rebuild livelihoodsThe food items distributed wereselected with the intention to providepeople some leeway and time torebuild their livelihoods. In bothtownships people foresee struggle tobring their lives back to normal again.Some are not able to work and haveno income, like 61-year-old U HlaKyaing or U Mg Hla Myint, who is 56and disabled since he lost a leg. Formany people in the area, their incomeis unreliable and their sources ofincome being destroyed by the floodaggravates the difficulty to rebuild. 30-year-old Daw May Thu is currently notworking because she is pregnant, butshe used to earn 5000 Myanmar Kyat(MMK) a day as a daily wager plantingpaddy. Not only were most of thepaddy fields destroyed, also stocks ofseeds were lost which makesreplanting difficult. Daw Pan Yin ,who’s family live from farming andcultivation describes how in Kawt Tarvillage “the stored straw to feedanimals floated” in the high water and“the food storages besides the ricemill were flooded too”.

U Saw Htee Hlaing from Taung Sutvillage described how he lost half ofhis garden and his family is survivingon the rice donations. The family relieson the garden, since “as a daily wagerI can only earn any income whenrubber and betel nut are in season”.He stresses the need for paddy seedsto replant.

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Fostering partnership and thelocalisation agendaChristian Aid works through localpartners and focuses on enablinglocal and national agencies toimprove their leadership inhumanitarian settings. Within thisinstitutional strategy, Christian Aidhas worked with Karen BaptistConvention (KBC), a prominent localorganisation with a strong presencein Kayin State, for over eight yearson initiatives linked to supportinghealth, disaster risk reduction andemergency response.

As the lead organisation in the‘Accelerating Localisation throughPartners (ALTP)’ programme,Christian Aid is committed toadvance the localisation agendafrom country to global level. Basedon research on strategic andoperational needs in Myanmar,Nepal Nigeria and South Sudan, theALTP programme provided keyrecommendations for partnershipsbetween national and internationalNGO’s. Pilots in the participatingcountries provided deeper insightson localisation in humanitarian work.

By building strong partnerships withlocal organisations and focusing oncapacity building and organisationaldevelopment, Christian Aid puts akey recommendation from the ALTPresearch into practice. In closeaccompaniment, Christian Aidsupported KBC in activity designand implementation through Kayin-based staff who facilitated a projectplanning workshop to developcommunity response plans, finalisethe IEC materials for hygienepromotion, procurementmechanisms and logistics. Besidesthis, Yangon-based staff providedtraining and support in areas suchas M&E, accountability, complaintresponse mechanism, safeguardingand financial management.