Last month, Global Fund Asia Program Officer Dechen Tsering and Program Associate Elaine Howard met with Htoo Paw, from the Karen Women's Organization, a Global Fund grantee. Read excerpts from Dechen's summary of their discussion, where she shares vital information about the ongoing crises of delivering post-cyclone aid relief and its socio-economic consequences:

Last Friday, Elaine and I met with Htoo Paw (pronounced: "Two-Paaw")- a dynamic young woman member of GFW grantee: Karen Women's Organization. Htoo wears multiple hats at KWO: she is a leader in their advocacy team, member of Federation Drafting Team, and a trainer of women's rights awareness programs in the refugee camps). She came as part of AJWS' first time "Grantee Tour" program whereby they host a grantee representative (young women in particular) to the US and organize meetings with various funding organizations as a means of helping the group diversify its funding sources.
Htoo Paw mentioned that 60 percent of the population along the most affected Irrawaddy Delta are of the Karen ethnicity. Aid into that area is minimal even two weeks after the Cyclone. She mentioned that groups along the Thai/Burma border are not yet seeing large influx of refugees crossing the border (they have no way of getting out of their affected areas right now) but that in a few months, they anticipate many more refugees along the border and in the camps (both on Thai and Burma sides). Need for basic necessities and health care in the camps could surpass the current capacity of the groups to handle the load.

Htoo Paw recommended supporting individual Burmese community-based organizations in Thailand and also to send support through the Mae Toe Clinic, a loose coalition of various human rights and Burmese groups that is also recognized by the Thai government as legitimate. This is the same organization that Advisor Tay Tay from Shan Women's group and Women's League of Burma recommended. Other groups she recommended are: Women's League of Burma, Thai-Burma Border Consortium.

An additional challenge is the growing trend of brain-drain among educated Burmese refugees from the camps. The US has passed a immigration policy that would allow Burmese refugees (from the camps only) to resettle in the US so groups like KWO are losing a lot of young educated volunteers and staff due to the third-country resettlement program. KWO alone is losing 100 trained volunteers from its camp programs and will now have to find new candidates and train them again in how to advocate for women survivors' rights in the camps.

Htoo Paw drew attention to the deepening poverty further aggravated by the cyclone. She pointed out that women coming into the camps in the coming months will be additionally vulnerable to sexual abuse and violence. Currently, the conditions in the camps are quite dismal. According to Htoo Paw, food in the camps for the first six months consists of rice, salt and some fish. After that, they subsist on just rice and salt!

By Dechen Tsering, Program Officer for Asia and Oceania

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