News

Innovation and Solutions from HART’s Partners in Burma

2 June 2021

This month HART is focusing on the ingenuity of our partners and the solutions they use to combat the challenges facing their communities. At the core of our ethos is a commitment to working in partnership with local people. All of our projects are locally-led, from vision through to implementation, by partners who possess the requisite knowledge, skills and commitment to find and deliver appropriate solutions.

Over the last 18 months, HART’s partners in Burma have faced political turbulence and the arrival of COVID-19. At every turn, our partners have met these challenges with imaginative and innovative solutions.

On 1st February 2021, a coup enacted by the Burmese Military ripped democracy away from the people of Burma. Moreover, COVID-19 has remained a constant threat to the people of Burma. Nonetheless, HART’s partners SWAN, Health and Hope and Loi Tai Leng have continued to provide crucial, life-saving support to their communities.

SWAN for example, identified a growing need for increased nutrition and health-awareness sessions in remote communities to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other disease. SWAN therefore diverted HART funding to provide education, soap, food, masks, vitamins and hygiene products to 115 households.

A SWAN CHW delivers a health-awareness session.

A female community member who’s community SWAN delivered a health awareness session to  told them, “because of the difficult road conditions and the communication gap, no other organisation has come to our village and shared information. So, we really appreciate SWAN’s work and wish for more health awareness sessions.

Where possible, SWAN’s Community Health Workers (CHWs) continued to support pregnant women, travelling to villages close to their own to provide urgent ante and post-natal care , as well as assistance with childbirth. Additionally, when fighting broke out in Shan State in September 2020, HART funds facilitated the provision of emergency support to 1,065 people who had fled their villages without any belongings, with SWAN’s CHWs returning in December to provide further assistance.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Loi Tai Leng was unfortunately unable to launch various HART-supported initiatives due to the closure of the Thai border resulting in a lack of access to goods and services. Loi Tai Leng School used the unexpected time afforded to them by COVID-19 and the restriction of travel to expand the school’s agriculture programme with a view to making the school self-sufficient and food secure.

Cabbage plants grow in the valley below Loi Tai Leng School

Director of Education for Shan State Larn Tai told us, “we have learnt many lessons from the COVID crisis about how to ensure school self-sufficiency. Before we just brought food over from Thailand. Everyone at Loi Tai Leng knows how important it is for us to produce our own food.

HART is proud of the inspiring and innovative ways that our partners in Burma have overcome the challenges of COVID-19 and the recent coup but the work doesn’t stop. Now, more than ever, our partners need your support to emerge from the COVID crisis stronger than ever. Click here to support our partners: https://bit.ly/31WrH4w

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