I must admit that my family and I have been uninterested and uninvolved with local and international political development pertaining to Myanmar. Since my teenage years, Myanmar politics had never attracted my interest even though I read news regularly. In the years that I reside abroad,I have always kept in touch with Myanmar weekly and I traveled back to Myanmar for at least a week on an annual basis.
I returned to Myanmar in a significant way after Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar on May 3, 2008. In the course of providing help to the people of Myanmar, I traveled to many places which I had never visited even while I was living in Myanmar. I was moved by the tremendous need that I saw everywhere. My resolution to help the people of Myanmar became stronger after I have seen with my eyes the condition of the people of Myanmar.
In my experience, I encountered several major hurdles in the course of assisting the people of Myanmar. I made several earnest enquiries to major international banks to provide wire transfer service to Myanmar for relief and charity purposes but was decline due to the International business sanctions currently in effect towards Myanmar. This sanction is to a large extent a hindrance even to humanitarian efforts as most banks prefer NOT to provide this service for the fear of violating the International sanctions. This seriously limit my ability to help Myanmar. Just within my circles of interaction, I have encountered donors and well-wishers turning back from assisting Myanmar due to these hurdles.
During the course of helping the victims of Cyclone Nargis, my 11 months old daughter passed away at Yangon Children Hospital. The hospital doctors and professors attempted their level best to save her with the available medical equipment but they did not succeed. As my daughter’s one year memorial celebration approaches on 17 September 2009, We are hoping to upgrade and renovate the Intensive Care Unit of Yangon Children Hospital in memory of her. It is also my desire that by providing better equipment to the qualified pediatricians at the hospital, more children and infants will have higher survival and recovery rate and future pediatricians and doctors can be trained with better equipment in better environment.
As I began to contact various medical equipment and system suppliers, I encountered similar hurdle due to the international business sanctions imposed on Myanmar. In one particular case, I contacted a major medical equipment supplier "Philips" and was advised by the representative of the company that their equipments cannot be sold to assist Myanmar, Yangon Children Hospital due to international business sanctions even though it is for charitable purpose.
Since June 2009, H1N1 flu epidemic alert has been an issue in Myanmar. There were fear that students in Yangon were affected by H1N1. Now my family is in Shanghai visiting friends and family. I was informed by my brother that H1N1 situation has become serious in Myanmar. The students must wear Face Mask in order to go to school. There are many students who cannot afford to buy face mask. The price of the face mask has risen up from 150ks to 700ks per piece.
students are happily wearing face mask to protect themselve from H1N1
I am planning to ship face mask from Shanghai. My friend Shelley is helping me finding out the price and the shipping while "i Love Myanmar" team in Myanmar have been donating as many face mask as possible to students who need them in order to attend school.
However, during the time of my search for face mask among the manufacturer in China, the Myanmar Ministry of Education department has closed schools due to fear of the virus infecting students and causing an epidemic that cannot be contained thus I no longer need to purchase face mask from China anymore.
Myanmar
