Children in a Myanmar IDP camp receiving their new school supplies. Photograph courtesy of New Eden Charity Foundation.
By BGR Staff
Since February 2021, when Myanmar’s army overthrew the country’s democratically elected government in a coup d’état, thousands of civilians have been killed and millions more have been forced to leave their homes. Today, an estimated 1.3 million people have become refugees, and another 2.75 million people—mostly women and children—are currently living as internally displaced persons (IDPs), according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. According to EU estimates, 18.6 million people in Myanmar are currently in need of humanitarian assistance. A quarter of the population is food insecure, and a third of children are unable to attend school.
BGR partner New Eden Charity Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Yangon, Myanmar, serves the needs of some of the most vulnerable people in Myanmar, focusing on children, families, and rural communities. In addition to responding to humanitarian crises, New Eden furnishes children with nutritious vegetarian food, shelter, clothing, clean water, and education; works to protect women from abuse, trafficking, forced marriage, and forced labor; and promotes sustainable agriculture and income opportunities in rural communities.
Northwest Myanmar is one of the most conflict-affected regions in the country. Since the coup, tens of thousands of people have fled from their villages to IDP camps in neighboring townships in search of safety; others still live in the jungles, unable and afraid to return to their homes.
Two BGR projects with New Eden are providing needed aid to people in IDP camps in Myanmar.
One is a feeding project that is providing desperately needed rice, cooking oil, salt, soap, and washing powder for families living in four IDP camps in Chin State—the least developed region in Myanmar and one devastated by the coup. The people in IDP camps here have come from areas including Sagaing and Kanpalet townships, where ongoing violence continues to drive families from their homes.
A second project with New Eden is addressing the needs of the thousands of children among these displaced families. Schools have been closed due to ongoing violence, and many children are entirely without access to education. In response to this need, community leaders in townships near the IDP camps have started informal educational programs for children in the camps. This project is supporting these worthy efforts by providing student kits containing exercise books, pens and pencils, rulers, erasers, alphabet charts, and other needed school supplies. In a nation where ethnic categories have at times proved divisive, the project is attending to the needs of all children, regardless of class, ethnicity, or gender. Last year, the project provided kits for 1,150 children, more than half of them girls; a new project will provide kits for the hundreds of children who arrive at these camps each year.
Our partner shared statements from a few of the children who have benefited from the educational program:
“I just go to community school here without having enough school kits, however, now I have sufficient student kits by generous donor. Thank you very much for the love and support. It is unforgettable!” said a displaced student from Fiarti village.
A child from Ruan village said, “Before the support came, I wrote all the lessons that I learned on one exercise book due to insufficient exercise books. However, now I have enough exercise books for each lesson for writing. I am thankful and grateful to generous donors.”
One of the community leaders involved with the school program added, “We thought that our community school couldn’t run anymore due to extreme poverty and difficulties due to civil war. Now, we are relieved of worry for schooling of our children as they have had enough school kits.”
This article is based on reporting by New Eden Charity Foundation.
