In a webinar on the topic "Humanity adé? - European refugee and development aid in Corona times", our country office manager Ralf Thill reports very vividly on the situation on the ground - the weak health system, the local conflict hotspots that flare up again and again, and the strict lockdown that massively restricts life - in conversation with Stephan Kühn (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), a member of the Bundestag. What is Ralf Thill hoping for despite everything?
"I hope that the view of the crisis does not get stuck locally, but that people in Germany see that at the moment the problems are similar worldwide. The Corona pandemic is a global challenge and I hope that the rest of the world will not forget about their own worries, also in Saxony, but that the solidarity that has been shown in many places now will be maintained," explains our Country Office Director in Myanmar.
Webinar mit Stephan Kühn, MdB, und Ralf Thill, arche noVa
In March, his team in Myanmar was one of the first in the world to start the prevention measures against COVID-19 with the distribution of 5000 soap packets in 30 villages around Lashio as well as posters, information flyers and SMS in five languages - Chinese, Kachin, Shan, Burmese and English.
"The quick response to the new situation was possible because arche noVa has already been active in Myanmar for many years, explains Country Director Ralf Thill. "While the focus in the first years was especially on emergency relief measures after earthquakes and cyclones that regularly hit the country, hygiene measures and crisis prevention have increasingly become the focus in recent years. This has now made it possible for us to quickly adapt the programmes to the current situation and to support the government of Myanmar and, of course, the people in the sometimes hard-to-reach areas of the country in containing COVID-19," says Ralf Thill.
Even the local health department contacted arche noVa during this critical time, asking for urgently needed face masks, which had been sold out for days and could not be obtained anywhere. On 30 March, arche noVa was able to hand over a delivery of 1,000 protective masks to the health authority in Lashio, which were directly forwarded to medical staff and midwives in rural areas to contribute to the personal protection of the people.
Meanwhile, the protective masks are produced by arche noVa itself in Lashio in a newly launched programme. One of the mask producers is U Thein Maung, a trained sewing machine mechanic and passionate firefighter. The family man, who has been running a small tailor's workshop for over 30 years, was very quickly extremely affected by the Corona pandemic. For weeks, there were hardly any orders for him and thus the income for his family of eight fell away. U Thein Maung and his wife Daw Khin mu are all the more pleased that they can now tailor protective masks on behalf of arche noVa, which will then be distributed directly in the remote villages for COVID-19 prevention. This helps many.
In order to be able to continue to help effectively and to recognise needs promptly, the team colleagues in Myanmar and the volunteers regularly consult with each other, even in times of lockdown and no contact. An important topic is always the exchange of best practices in this new and special situation. For example, in the arche noVa office in Ann, small groups of volunteers from the fields of hygiene and disaster preparedness meet again and again to talk about their experiences in the villages and to get the latest information on important hygiene and health measures in relation to COVID-19. Of course, with the necessary safe distance. Because social distancing also applies in Myanmar.
Even the youngest children in Myanmar learn that regular and thorough hand washing is one of the best ways to combat the Corona virus. Therefore, arche noVa sets up so-called hand washing stations at schools in times of crisis, always combined with boards and pictures on hygiene rules. These hand-washing stations are set up in modules and can thus be built quickly and expanded as needed. A single module consists of four taps that are supplied with water via a pipe. There is also a storage space for soap and towels in the middle. How many modules are needed depends on the size of each school. A school in Shan State usually has around 100 children, so you need two of these hand-washing modules.
The flexible hand washing stations or even massively built washing facilities at schools are a measure that arche noVa has been implementing in Myanmar for years as part of its WASH activities. Thus, health care through good hygiene is not only possible in times of crisis. But in addition to natural disasters and armed conflicts, which threaten the people in Myanmar again and again, there is now the danger of Corona.
As in many of our project areas worldwide, COVID-19 in Myanmar is just another problem on top of many other disasters and conflicts. In mid-April, our programme manager Laura Puts reported on the project in Rakhine State: "15 of our project villages have been inaccessible for weeks because of the ongoing fighting between the civil war parties. However, we have not forgotten the people who are caught between the fronts. Packages of soap and information material are being prepared for them so that they can be delivered to the villages quickly and easily as soon as the opportunity arises."
Despite all the hurdles, soap and information materials were distributed in and around Ann in March and April: 1826 families received 3790 bars of soap. 118 of the affected families have to stay in an IDP camp in this critical situation, as they fled the fighting in the countryside to the city.
Until now, humanitarian relief activities to prevent COVID-19, which arche noVa is implementing in Rakhine State as well as in Shan, continue. New measures to improve the situation of internally displaced persons in particular are also being planned.
