Thirty year-old Ko Aung Kyaw Myint lives with his wife and three children in the Htaung Hmoo Chaung village in Dedaye Township, one of the areas worst affected by the cyclone that struck southern Myanmar in May 2008.
Ko Aung Kyaw Myint lost his house in the disaster and since then his family have been sharing his mother’s small home with eight other people.
Ko Aung Kyaw Myint also lost his job as a fisherman when his boat and other fishing equipment was swept away by the flood waters.
“The morning after the cyclone we found ourselves with nothing. We had lost all our possessions including our clothes,” said Ko Aung Kyaw Myint.
Lost Livelihoods
Since loosing his livelihood Ko Aung Kyaw Myint has been reliant on small and irregular donations to keep his family alive and it has been impossible to rebuild his family home.
“I can’t even imagine rebuilding our house while we are still desperately trying to earn enough to fulfill our basic needs and to get enough food. At the moment we are sharing my mother’s small and crowded house. Sometimes I manage to get work in the rice mill which is nearby and sometimes I find work on the local farms. I get paid by the day and it is never more than 1,500 Kyats (around $1). With this it is impossible to feed my family, so we have not eaten regular meals for the last three months” he said.
“When I was working as a fisherman I could easily earn K 5,000 (just over $4) each day. The fishing season is from September to April. To help us through the periods when we could not work, we saved some of our income,” he added.
To help people restart their livelihoods, IR has been distributing new fishing boats and tools to those who lost them in the cyclone. Ko Aung Kyaw Myint has just received his new boat and is overjoyed at the prospect of being able to start fishing again.
“Islamic Relief provided 17 fishermen in our village - including me - with a boat each and all the netting equipment. It was like a dream for us,” Ko Aung Kyaw Myint said.
Respect to Islamic relief
His wife Ma Ni Ni Aye said that they were astonished that a Muslim relief agency was working to help the Buddhist families in the area.
“With this new boat and tools we will be able to earn more money and will hopefully be able to save some to use to rebuild our house,” Ma Ni Ni Aye said. “We can start living like we did before and will hopefully be able to send two of our children to school now. We want to give respect to Islamic Relief by bowing down our heads to floor, as is our Buddhist tradition.”