Humanitarian Aid

I met an amazingly qualified new co-worker of mine yesterday, a medical doctor who once worked in a leprosy mission and has a masters degree in public administration from the Kennedy School in Boston.

Naw Rebecca Htin is a world-class humanitarian. She begins this month as the new World Concern country director for Myanmar (Burma). She’s a mother of three and her husband is a neurosurgeon. And she also grew up in Burma, which was the name of her native country until 1989, when the current military government decided to reinforce the country’s separation from British colonial rule.

Naw is “Ms.” in her language. We call her Rebecca, and she’s also an answer …

Every home along the main street of Myanmar’s Aima fishing village has something in common.

It goes beyond the woven bamboo walls, metal roofs and identical 270 square foot floor plans.

You might see it in the eyes of a Burmese boy who is barely tall enough to peer out of his front window.

Or maybe you can sense it from the young mother crouched in her doorframe, hands on chin, looking out.

One year ago, 119 of the 940 people who lived in Aima lost their lives in Cyclone Nargis, often the husbands and fathers who were out for the day catching crabs or fishing.

The deaths here are a small part of the 140,000+ killed when Nargis ripped…

Just imagine what’s left over from a major storm along the coast. Debris clogging a bay under a blue sky…