Myanmar audio slideshow transcript

Sophie Mack Smith: Oxfam's humanitarian worker Jane Beesley has just come back from Myanmar where she went to look at Oxfam's programme responding to Cyclone Nargis.

Jane Beesley:There was a lot of devastation. I don't think people realise how big it was – it's the eighth worst cyclone in the world, and it's left about 140,000 people dead or missing, and affected two and a quarter million people.

SMS: So what were some of the most urgent needs we had to meet?

JB: Well one of the things we had to do immediately was help people access clean, safe water. And as you can see from this picture here, some people had these concrete, open pots. But as you can imagine, you can’t keep your water very clean in those, and so we distributed all these larger pots that you can see have got a cover on them.

We get them locally, they’re locally made, and then they just load them up on the boats, and come down the river, and distribute them to people that way. And they’re larger than the ones that they had previously so the drinking water lasts longer, and it’s covered and safe.

SMS: So what's going on in this picture?

JB: Well, it looks like a really pretty pond doesn’t it, you know, and you can see all the lilies growing. But actually, this illustrates one of the major problems that people are facing over the next few months, that these ponds are where people collect their drinking water from – all other water they’ll go to the river or the sea.

The community here was saying that there’s only about a month’s supply of water left. And when they’re collecting it, the cows are also going there, and the pigs. And people are having health problems. I met one old lady and she was saying she was having stomach cramps and problems which she’d never had before.

So Oxfam, is going to help the community and build a fence around this particular pond which will keep the animals out. And they’re going to be working with the communities in the future about water management.

SMS: And was this one of our beneficiaries?

JB: Yes, he was a lovely man, that I met and he’s actually getting a latrine that Oxfam is helping people to build. And he was really excited at the prospect.

You know, people had them before, but what he was saying is that the previous one was made from bamboo and thatch, and so it didn’t feel very safe, and especially, he was saying, at his age he really wanted something that was much stronger and firmer, and the new latrines are going to be wooden design.

And, as you can see in this next picture, there’s some training, and this is our engineer who’s explaining to the community how we’re going to construct, or how they’re going to construct the latrines. And it’s quite a special design because this area’s flooded, so it’s raised up, the latrine’s raised up on legs like stilts, and then there’s a tube that goes down into the latrine area, so it keeps it safe.

SMS: You did also talk about longer-term livelihoods, I suppose if people have had their livelihoods destroyed, that's a much longer-term problem

JB: Well, that’s the biggest challenge now for the people living in the Ayeyarwady delta. You know, people responded really generously last year and the immediate needs, I think, by and large have been met, and people have got shelter and are now able to meet some of their daily needs. But, the huge challenge now is people rebuilding their livelihoods and that is going to take years and years to do when you think of the scale of the cyclone.

And we’re involved in quite a few sort of livelihood activities. We’ve been distributing piglets to people. These have been given to people who’ve already had piglets in the past. And, here you can see that this family were delighted to get these two piglets.

They’re only little as you can see, and so they won’t have the immediate benefits – it’ll take eight months until they’re big enough and old enough to breed, but they’re hoping that through those piglets they’ll be able to afford education for their children, and to invest in other assets so that they can get a better livelihood.

SMS: What other sorts of livelihoods are there?

JB: Well the other sorts of thing that we were working on was business support, so there was a woman that we met who is a coconut seller. And we’ve just been supporting her in developing her business, or rebuilding her business,

And another big one is obviously fishing. And so we’re now distributing fishing nets to people who lost their fishing nets after the cyclone. And we’re just in the process of distributing boats to people who lost boats as well. But, you know, it is an area that we really really need to give a lot more support to over the next few years.

SMS: So Oxfam isn't going to be leaving imminently?

JB: Well we have an agreement that we're going to be working in these two townships for three years and we're hoping we can build on a lot of the work that we've already started.

SMS: Jane Beesley, thank you very much

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• Further information about the Myanmar (Burma) Cyclone