Many people, after last developments in south-eastern Asia, came back in Myanmar from Thailand and China, where they were for job. The Ministry of Health published on 5th April the amount of those people: 45.498 burmese people came back during last two weeks of March. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to control all these people, some borders are open without any control, giving in this way the chance to come back avoiding controls and so it’s impossible to know the exact number of them and how many of them are exactly in quarantine.
Political situation is very delicate, and during this period awareness grew among the people about what it’s happening and the fear (about healthy and political situation) grew, too.
Government made a call to look for adequate place to answer different kind of needs. First of all there is the need to find spaces where suspected cases could stay in quarantine. They’re looking for big structure, equipped, with beds and possibility to eat, and to have first assistance.
Our local New Humanity’s staff reflected on how to respond to such a need. The time we’re living in is demanding a lot, not only as organization, but as humanity at first. It’s too early to make any consideration, but we believe that this virus is threatening not only our bodies, but lots of levels of our society, psychology and faith, too. Bodies could be healed with distances, but the spirit and the psyche need proximity. For this reason, we decided to open the House of Dreams in Taunggyi to this new needthat this population and every other population are living: bodies getting sick, spirits getting lonely. The House of Dreams is a residential centre for care and rehabilitation for addicted people, addiction is a problem very spread in Myanmar.
At the moment in the House of Dreams there aren’t beneficiaries, because at the end of last rehabilitation path all guests came back to their villages. We were planning to start the new rehabilitation group at the end of April, but in this emergency we certainly don’t know how long it could last and when we could re-start the program. Our program manager proposes to House of Dreams staff to respond to this government’s need giving availability of the house to assist people in quarantine. After a first evaluation about the possibility to put in place all security and prevention measures for the house and for themselves,they decided to answer yes to this call. After some contacts with local government now the House of Dreams is inserted in the list of available places for quarantine, our staff already re-organized the house following governmental and international hygienic and prevention indications and they already bought all necessary items to stay in quarantine.
We can foresee first arrivals already this week and New Humanity International already allocated some funds to face expenses for this first answer to the emergency.
Another very important aspect it to provide assistance to centers we are supporting: there’s no more possibility to access to provide therapies services we were providing, but we’re still giving continuity to the provision of food and hygienic materials.
We are very worried about rural villages, where people can no longer go to work or go to the city to sell their products. 
Our staff in Shan State has already organized to bring food and hygienic materials at the gate of villages, in order to be able to give them to families we are supporting in our disability program.
In Yangon we keep on supporting, at distance, the Juvenile Center, with doctor’s visits more often and furniture of hygienic and health materials and devices.
The situation is very critical, as in other similar contexts, and New Humanity is reacting putting in place different responses to the emergency that are possible only thanks to our private donors and to the incredible commitment of our local staff.
Thanks to all, we’ll keep you updated.
Recent Comments