Portraits of Our Help: Holiday Edition

Throughout 2007, Malteser International has published remarkable stories of how we help people and communities in the countries where we work to rebuild and revitalize. We've met incredible people doing great work and making great strides and doing great services to help others. We've packaged these stories together for the holiday version of our On the SPOT newsletter.

These new Portraits of Our Help offer heartwarming and inspirational stories from people working in India, Dr Congo, Myanmar, Pakistan, India... everywhere where we help provide relief efforts and rebuilding projects. Download our On The Spot Christmas Edition to read our stories.

Help Us Provide Aid for India's Flood Victims

Intense flooding in India near the Nepal border has created an urgent need for resources. 10,000 to 15,000 families in the district of Basantpur alone are holding out on the remaining dams since nearly three weeks. The expert describes the situation of the survivors as “atrocious”, the people affected by the floods are frustrated: “No help has reached these people up to now, they are living in bare misery under branches of trees and plastic bags. Many of them grieve for family members.” Furthermore, the people in the camp are threatened by the outbreak of diseases. "The water supply is absolutely insufficient. The people are suffering from diarrhea.”

Malteser International will bring water disinfection items, water cans as well as cookware, plastic sheets and tools for the building of emergency shelter to the needy as soon as possible.

For its emergency relief in Bihar, Malteser International urgently calls for donations! You can make a tax-deductible donation to the Order of Malta Worldwide Relief--Malteser International America to support our efforts.

Celebrate World Water Week

On August 18, the 2008 World Water Week was inaugurated iwith a conference in Stockholm. The theme of the week is “Progress and Prospects on Water: For a Clean and Healthy World with Special Focus on Sanitation.” It takes place at a time when billions of people live without sustainable access to safe drinking water or suffer ill health due to poor sanitation, when worsening food crisis battles bioenergy for land and water resources, and when global climate change is shaking the overall water balance. One of the focal points of Malteser International Americas is to ensure safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in countries that do not make the news every day.

From Safe Water and Sanitation to Good Health

Download our latest publication "From safe water and sanitation to good health -- Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) projects in Asia". Learn how simple methods can help make a difference toward clean drinking water more about  and discover how WASH programs help saves lives, especially the lives of children.

Nobody should fall in the water pond anymore…

Esther Suchanek is working as a project assistant for Malteser International and currently writes a travel diary from the disaster region.

How people in remote areas contribute to improve their living conditions Today, I leave the disaster region for a visit in one of the other project regions of Malteser International in Myanmar. Very early, in the pouring rain, we start our trip to the Mayu Kan peninsula close to Sittwe, in the north west of Myanmar. Here, Malteser International has been implementing a project to improve the water and sanitation as well as the health situation in 26 villages since 2006.

Two years ago, all started with a survey amongst the people in the villages to see what exactly their needs are. Then, together with the  inhabitants, the plan was made about how to go on. For example, the survey had shown that the construction of latrines should be a major point on the agenda: Malteser International was going to provide the materials for the construction, but the villagers themselves had to decide how many latrines they needed and where they wanted to build them. Furthermore, staff members of Malteser International distributed mosquito nets (namely 5165 – every household in the project’s catchment area received one) and  water filters. In addition, health promoters educate the people about risks of diseases like malaria and the importance of clean drinking water. Water ponds are being cleaned and rebuilt so that they will stay clean in the future.

In That Yet Chaung, a small community with about 145 households, we meet the village leader who proudly presents us his new latrine. Here, the people are very engaged and committed to make a change. “Before we started with the construction of the latrines, we had a meeting, every household had a vote. The result: every household wanted to get its own latrine”, the chief says. And so it was done. Where before there were only five latrines for 128 households there is now one latrine for each family.

Malteser International provides a basic set for the construction, the people often bring additional material to make the latrines more stable and look better. “The inhabitants of this village take such good care of their latrines that they will easily last ten to 15 years”, Julio Sosa, project manager at Malteser International in Sittwe, says.

Laughing, the village chief tells us how before, people often fell in the water pond because its edges were muddy and slippery, making the water dirty. This can’t happen anymore since Malteser International built a new concrete stair for the villagers to reach the water.

Furthermore, the villagers together with Malteser International plan to construct a fence so that animals won’t go drinking from the pond anymore. That will make the water even safer for drinking. The construction of the new health centers goes on at full speed.

We walk back through the village to the boat. Everything is very clean and in order. The rain is still heavy and the paths turned into little rivers. Before the arrival of Malteser International and the installation of the latrines, the waste water of many families flew across here...

In total, we visit three villages in which Malteser International works in the sector of WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene). But this is not all: the organization is currently also constructing five health centers in this region where before there was not even one. Up until today, the medical care is being taken care of by midwives that are each responsible for up to seven villages and work from home. A new health structure is therefore urgently needed. When the construction of the health centers will be finished, the Ministry of Health will take over and sustainably operate them. Of course, they are all provided with latrines and rain water harvesting tanks. And they are cyclone-proof, which is very important in this region where cyclones regularly strike in the beginning of rainy season, destroying many buildings. The construction is going on at full speed; the hand-over will take place soon.

It is good to see how the people here on Mayu Kan are happy about the assistance and how they commit themselves actively in the planning and implementation of all project measures.

They even founded committees to take care of their new facilities like the ponds and fences when they were built. In addition, the access to health care will be secured. This combination will hopefully change the situation of the people for the better in the long term, even after Malteser International will have left the area. The stone just needed to start rolling.

Esther Suchanek

Daw Khin Mya’s nightmare of May 2nd: How a grandmother in Thin Gan Kone on Middle Island lived the cyclone

Esther Suchanek is working as a project assistant for Malteser International and currently writes a travel diary from the disaster region.

Today I met an elderly lady. I was very impressed by the story she told me. She lost her husband and her house during the cyclone. But she does not give up. I cannot forget her and though I decided to write down her story:

Daw Khin Mya (her name has been changed for this story)  is smiling while she’s telling her story. This happens frequently after people experienced something horrible; it is kind of a self-protection-mechanism to deal with the memories. Day Khin Mya will never forget her memories of the night of May 2, 2008, when cyclone Nargis hit the coast of Myanmar, killing ten thousands of people and destroying hundred thousands of homes.

"First came the wind," the 63-year old woman says. "A very strong wind with a deafening noise. Then came the water." Daw Khin Mya is sitting in what she has reconstructed of her former big wooden house on the banks of the river in Thin Gan Kone, a little city on Middle Island, in the western part of the Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar. Now she is living in a little hut, repaired here and there with plastic sheets provided by humanitarian organizations.

Thin Gan Kone is divided into two parts by a river. During the cyclone, the bridge was destroyed, cutting off the southern part of the city to the somehow safer northern site, leaving the people in the south without many ways to get out. Daw Khin Mya lives in the southern part of the town. When she wanted to flee form the water, she realized that the bridge had broken and that she had to find another way out. Together with her husband and some neighbors, she took a small boat. The wind was still blowing at full speed and the water had gained strength persecuting them. When her husband tried to save other people from drowning, he fell in the water and could not make it back in the boat. He died in the floods. Shortly after, the boat fell over, leaving all passengers at the mercy of nature. Fortunately, all 16 passengers survived and found refuge in a storage house far away from their home village. At this point of the story, Daw Khin Mya pauses. She holds one of her grandchildren sitting on her lap, still smiling.

The next morning, when the storm had continued its way towards Yangon to then disperse, she came back to Thin Gan Kone. Everything she once owned was gone. With the help of her five children, she reconstructed her little hut. During her escape, she hurt her knee and she was also suffering from diarrhea. So she went to the health center in Thin Gan Kone. This center as well as further four other health centers on Middle Island are now being operated by Malteser International. But the physical pain Daw Khin Mya is feeling is not the worst – she also suffers from anxiety and depression. These wounds are not that easy to heal. Malteser International is therefore going to send lay-counselors to Middle Island to assist the people to cope with their experiences and memories.

But after all she has been through Daw Khin Mya does not give up on life. Her husband and she used to work in the fishery industry. And even though the water has taken everything she owned and her husband, she still wants to live close to the river and start fishing again. Daw Khin Mya walks through the streets of her village. She stops to talk to her neighbors who have all experienced similar tragedies that night of May 2, 2008. Then she turns to the little hut where her daughter and grandchildren live. Smiling, she waves me good-bye as she takes of her shoes to enter the small home.

Esther Suchanek