BootsnAll Travel Community

I am leaving for Shanghai in 4 days and I was planning to travel around S.E. Asia till July 4th. I was thinking of extending my trip a month and going to Burma to help with relief efforts. Does anyone know of any good groups? Advice? I would appreciate anything thanks!

Tammy

If you are an experienced "aid worker" with valuable skills then it makes sense for you to go to Burma. But if you are like many of us wanting to help, going on the ground that might not be the best thing to do. Our inexperience might actually hinder.

If you do go take all the medications for typhoid and cholera..anything which is a water borne disease. And of course this is one time you should take allll the vacinations possible.

Even experience aid workers and organizations are being denied visas.The Junta just confiscated UN aid supplies.

I think the best way to help right now is to donate to the many organisations so that when get to help your donations are ready to buy the supplies locally.

If you still want to go then check Red Cross, Oxfam, UN website (the different organisations have voluntary opp).

But honestly if you have not done relief work before the chances of being hired as a volunteer are tough.

I guess i'm cynical when it comes to these things...but remember Myanmar is the country when it was burma who put their female Prime Minister who won the election under house arrest by the military dictatorship, and i think still is today, unless she died...This is also the country that just saw probably more than 100,000 of their citizens get killed in the blink of an eye and is refusing UN support and is just now allowing US supplies in to the country. Early reports are that the government is not even using the supplies, thousands of bodies are floating down the rivers and deltas...

I agree with Madhu, donate to an organization that will hopefully help with the relief efforts, but Visas are impossible to obtain it seems from the reports...

Aung San Suu Kyi is very much alive. She was also affected by the cyclone but I believe she is safe.

The Junta has a referendum this weekend for a change in consitution and I think after that is over they will accept the aid.

Just out of interest, how do you get Aid Work experience if you never go and do any Aid Work?

Well, there is an answer.

1. Have a lot of ready money. There are good experiences to be had with real teaching, but they involve paying organisations to teach you, rather than them actually valuing your help. Once you have an IN, i imagine a lot of it is resume and word of mouth through official aid agencie.

2. Get either a teaching degree, medical experience, or a professional degree. Volunteer organisations won't turn down a nurse or doctor with experience, perhaps even a medical student just out of school.

3. Start out with cheap or free experiences, through word of mouth, or opportunities posted here, get the experience as a mere helper, and prove to the next and better appointment that you are a hard worker and able to take the strain of working hard without much pay for little appreciation-

4. Join the Peace Corps. If you have good enough grades, go to an ivy league school, and have oodles of recommendations, you'll be trained for, and given the chance to be dropped in some godforsaken place and help villagers that may or may not want to be helped. THEN, with that on your resume, your career as a NGO worker is set.

5. Go through your Church. Often there are chances to really help if your church raised funds for you to do the work, as well as vouch for your character.

6. Find a church organisation. The best ones are very picky, and require real training sessions. They often don't charge, but be prepared for a long admission process.

There are books on the subject.

PS. BUrma has rejected even official NGO's so you won't have much of a chance. Thye government cares less about its people than most foriegners do.

Short story:

I showed-up to Greensburg, KS a day after the F-5 tornado demolished the city on May 4th, 2007. The National Guard had set-up a perimeter around the town not allowing anybody to enter.

A couple of days doing boring admin. work with the Red Cross led another volunteer and I to paste a car with Red Cross stickers, etc. that allowed us access to the disaster zone.

We helped people sift through the remains of their houses for a week, searching for the things they valued most. On day 6 I found a dog that was alive and well, he became a symbol of hope.

Bottom line- we didn't play by the rules. We went were we were not suppose to, and made a big difference in peoples shattered lives.

Want to go to Myanmar? Fly to Bangkok, take the train the Chiang Mai, get a driver to get you into Burma. Make a difference.

BDiggans,

I applaud you taking the time to help, but it should be pointed out that Kansas is not Burma. It sounds like you did some good helping with the tornado relief (and I would say even that "boring" administrative work was important otherwise they wouldn't have had you doing it), but the Red Cross was expecting kind-hearted folks like yourself to show up. They always show up.

The Burmese junta is not expecting friendly foreigners to show up and help out. They will look at you quite suspiciously. This is a country that moved its capital in the middle of the night to the middle of nowhere because of fears that the U.S. was about to invade Rangoon. This is a country that decided overnight to change from driving on one side of the road to the other. The same country that released new currency in denominations of nine because it was a lucky number (and then devalued the existing currency without providing renumeration.) This is the same country that posts guards with machine guns on bridges to make sure you don't take a picture of the bridge.

The Burmese people are wonderful and would probably welcome your help, but if the government finds you there illegally helping them they are likely to jail or deport you and then send that whole family off to a work camp for the next thirty years.

Burma is one of those countries that isn't particularly dangerous to foreigners, but by talking to the locals you put them in danger.

I hope I don't sound unduly harsh, but I don't want someone getting chivalrous ideas and charging in and doing something they haven't through through. Burma isn't your normal, every day place.

The Burmese Government has made it clear it wishes aid from other nations, but not ONE foriegn aid worker. Their military and others handles all supplies.

When I say handle, I mean I doubt that 50% of it actually GETS near the afflicted people. This remains to be seen, but.. no one is allowed around TO see.

If they don't want any official NGO people, then clearly they are going to arrest anyone caught talking to or helping the populace on sight as a spy.

I do hope you have a good lawyer, or training AS a spy to avoid being caught.

You'd just be one more mouth to feed right now, especially in the Delta region. Check out this site for up to the minute news about what its like on the ground there. The Irrawaddy

China IS letting Westerners help with the earthquake. Maybe you'd be better there especially if you have some skills they can use in these sort of situations. Speaking fluent Chinese would probably come in quite handy too.