How Scots' donations have helped Burmese survive since cyclone hit

HALF a million survivors – 200,000 of them children – are still living under flimsy tarpaulins a year after Cyclone Nargis struck Burma, a Scottish charity worker revealed today.

Andrew Kirkwood, who has led efforts on the ground for Save the Children over the past year, said Scots donated £700,000 to an appeal in the space of three weeks after the cyclone claimed the lives of 140,000 people.

The money has been used to help rebuild scores of villages flattened by winds of more than 130mph and a wall of water 12ft high that ravaged the Irrawaddy delta on 2 May, 2008.

But while much has been achieved since then, Mr Kirkwood, from Paisley, said many people were still suffering.

Today, as Save the Children's 14 offices in Burma hold a minute's silence for victims of the cyclone, Mr Kirkwood said fears were growing among non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that the makeshift shelters would be washed away when the monsoon season started battering the delta in a month's time.

Speaking from the southern township of Laputta, Mr Kirkwood described how the charity's 1,100 staff were still battling to help thousands of Burmese people get access to proper housing and fresh water, reunite children with their parents, rebuild schools and feed pregnant women and their families.

"The scale of the destruction still hits you one year on – people have not been able to rebuild their homes, or replace their way of making a living," he said. "They lost everything – their family, ploughs and animals.

"We are delivering water to 66,000 people every day. At one point we were feeding a quarter of a million people with rice, oil, salt and, for pregnant women and families with young children, fortified noodles.

"We have reduced this to only 41,000 a month and hope to get this down to 20,000 very soon, which means we are helping only the most vulnerable and the least able to feed themselves.

"In the longer term, one of the big problems will be education, because 4,000 schools were either damaged or destroyed. About 1,200 of those have been repaired and another 1,300 schools have been built," he said.

In the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, it was feared that the ruling military junta was hampering the aid effort by confiscating supplies.

But Mr Kirkwood said none of the 50 international aid agencies working in the Irrawaddy delta was aware of any systematic misappropriation of supplies or funds by the generals.

"Over the past year, we have learned that the government is not nearly as obstructive as people think it is, and the government has learned that we do not have a hidden agenda and are working according to humanitarian principles, trying to help victims of the cyclone in a non-political, non-religious way," he explained.

Despite all the fears for the future, many stories of hope are coming out of the delta.

Within the first two weeks after the cyclone hit, Save the Children reached 160,000 people in the delta and around Rangoon, the Burmese capital.

Since then, the charity's 14 offices have helped 620,000 Burmese people, including about 220,000 children.

"People in Scotland gave very generously to cyclone survivors in the immediate aftermath, and I want to say thank you for that – it helps us distribute these vital services," said Mr Kirkwood.

• Donate money to help Save the Children continue to rebuild shattered lives in Burma online at www.savethechildren.org.uk

Third boat handed to hospital project

THE Scot who gave hope and help to thousands when he loaned two cruise boats to act as floating hospitals in the cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy delta has given a third vessel to a charity working in the relief effort.

Edinburgh businessman Paul Strachan, 46, who runs the Pandaw River Cruise Company in Burma, raised approximately £537,000.

He told The Scotsman that half of the money has been spent on buying, refitting and maintaining a 128ft motorised barge which has been converted to offer staff accommodation, carry medical equipment and operate water purifiers.

The Pandaw clinic barge is on permanent loan to the Merlin charity, which sends medics out to villages that Mr Strachan says still have not seen any aid.

His next project is to build ten new primary schools.

"We have already built six or seven," he said. "You can build a big wooden primary school in Burma, for a couple of hundred kids, for about £800.

"We just need to identify villages and sites. Building schools is a great community project.

"It involves the whole village, it's literally jobs for the boys.

"The Burmese are a very resilient people. But, physically, the scars of the cyclone are still there – the uprooted trees and devastated buildings."