WE WOULD LIKE TO RAISE AT LEAST £50,000 TO HELP VICTIMS OF THE BURMESE CYCLONE - CAN YOU HELP?

This is a message from Paul Hancock and Patricia Solar. As most readers of this page will know, we live and work in Thailand (see www.khomloy.org), so we feel particularly touched by the recent disaster and the prevention by the Burmese regime of much of the relief effort. The current UN estimate of deaths has just passed 100,000.

Just 200 miles from where I am typing this, people are starving and homeless and yet the combined efforts of the West are being prevented from making aid available in any volume.

Over the last year, Patricia and I have been starting to work with some Burmese charities which have a long history of effective, non-denominational work in Burma. (For their own safety and to avoid official interference in their efforts, we won't name them here but I am happy to give details to any potential donor.)

These groups are working now in the affected areas, providing shelter, food, clean water and other supplies which have been bought locally using money which we and others have been able to raise in the West and make available to them by trusted intermediaries who have been willing to release money locally in Burma as soon as it is raised in the West.  This effort is  "under the radar " of the authorities and is going ahead despite the efforts of the authorities to block visas, shipments, and divert relief supplies to the military.

(You can see at the bottom of this text some extracts from emails we have received from the front line in the last few days.)

We are launching an Appeal, through our UK charity, The Izara Khom Loy Trust, to raise £50,000 to support this effort to provide help while it is desperately needed.  You can use the link below to donate by credit card, so Izara Khom Loy Trust will receive your money faster. If you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.

100% of your donations will go directly to purchase relief supplies (where possible, locally in Burma) where supplies will be immediately distributed to the desperate survivors of the tragedy - nothing will be deducted for administration or any other overheads.

We are sure that many of you will already have supported the relief efforts in other ways. But if any of you have not yet done so and would like to support this Appeal, please use the link below to make a donation.

Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to make a donation. (If you would like to make a donation by direct bank transfer, we have accounts in the UK, France, the US, Canada and Thailand which you can use and in the US and Canada we can arrange for donors to get a tax receipt - please email me at pmchancock@gmail so we can discuss details further)

Many thanks for your support.

Below are some extracts from recent emails from the teams we are supporting (as mentioned above, because of news reports that the army are obstructing relief teams and confiscating supplies, names are omitted):

"E-mail was down as was everything else [including my house which is completely destroyed; a 10 ton tree, one of the biggest in Yangon, went straight through my roof.

We have a large emergency program going on. 10 medical teams in the field, plus 10 watsan teams and 10 food distribution teams. 100,000 kg of rice plus fish, plastic sheeting and so forth. 3 cargo planes coming, but not sure yet if the authorities will permit us to get it or will keep it for themselves [as they told UNHCR that their cargo will be taken by the government...]. Very busy."

"It is easier to get the supplies inside the country than organizing the logistics of bringing in packages of things."

"The Program director and Communications Officers are working day and night, supported by many volunteers with useful skills. We have been able to mobilize local organizations and people from the area who can act there. They are supported by our staff and volunteers. In Pathein where we have 3 staff and 12 volunteers. Laputta and Myaungmya share 17 staff, including an ECCD teacher, and many volunteers from churches, communities, etc."  

"A medical team is being sent today to Bogalay. In Pyin-hka-yaing Island where we were carrying out mangrove replantation, we are running a camp managed by three staff that received Disaster Management and Preparedness training from Oxfam Hong Kong"

"We received news from our colleagues in the Delta that in Kaing Taung Island, 400 houses out of 600 houses have been destroyed but luckily there is no loss of life. As for drinking water, there is just one well near the mangrove forest that is still ok, the rest can no longer be used due to salt pollution."

"We provided an initial 50 rice bags for survivors. Drinking water, waterguard, food and medicine and other necessities are also being provided. With the rainy season approaching, the immediate needs are shelter, medicines and storage facilities for food. Thousands of people will be without homes for many months to come."

"We are learning that in the relief camps of Myaugmya, Laputta and Pathein, there are many orphans and children under 5. Before Nargis, we had 15 Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) centers, but we have been able to find one ECCD teacher only among the survivors so far."

"We will provide one bag of rice, beans, oil and salt to households. We are buying 12,000 rice bags, 12,000 bottles of water, beans and oil, tarpaulin to be send to Pyin-hka-yaing camp."