OVERVIEW
Following on from a successful one-year project (supported by Entrust), our partners have reviewed and refined their water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) program to roll out this 3-year project in the poor, marginalized and conflicted Rhakine State. This complements another project in the area supported by Entrust with the same partner. Focusing on WASH, together with economic empowerment, the project will provide WASH training in two locations in 50-60 rural, disadvantaged villages/communities assisting 50,000 people. A strong hygiene education component will accompany the clean drinking water and sanitation facilities. Sand bio-filters will be made and marketed locally to provide a means of income for people and provide clean drinking water in villagers’ homes. WASH information centres will also be established.
WHAT WE LIKE ABOUT IT
This project is meeting a very real need with no clean water source accessible to these communities. The focus on training locals to learn both the knowledge and the skills to continue to improve the water and sanitation situation ensures not only that results will be sustainable, but outcomes will also improve over time. We like the well-considered approach our partners have taken to learn how to modify and improve the delivery of good community development projects before rolling out larger projects.
BUDGET
Year 1 2018 – $43,200 (of a 3-year project totaling $131,700).
THE NEED
The Rakhine State is the poorest state in Myanmar. It has suffered severely through inter-ethnic violence and continues to do so, particularly since August 2017 with the “ethnic cleansing” of the muslim Rohingya people into Bangladesh at the hands of the strongly Buddhist Myanmar government. It also suffers from extreme weather events, with severe flooding in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Resources are very limited or non-existent. All of these combined, make daily life extremely hard.
LIFE CHANGE
