Myanmar Cyclone Nargis Pyapon Hub Update No. 1

OVERVIEW & KEY DEVELOPMENTS

- The ASEAN Hub Officer has recently arrived in Pyapon to be co-located with OCHA hub-office The overall objective of this deployment is to enhance tripartite cooperation at the hub level, modelling after the Tripartite Core Group (TCG). The ASEAN officer, Mr Phillip Danao can be contacted the OCHA Yangon office or on 098602304 and email: phildanao.aseanhtf@gmail.com.

- The Periodic Review was officially launched on 19 October in Yangon by the Chairman of the TCG who is also the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, U Kyaw Thu. In Pyapon District, 18 villages will be targeted covering Pyapon, Dedaye, Kyaik Lat and Maubin. The training of enumerators has started and fieldwork is anticipated to begin on 29 October and end around 18 November 2008.

- A mission from the UN Development Operations Office and UNDP's Bureau of Crisis Prevention and Response (BCPR) visited Pyapon on 22 October to see how best headquarters support can be provided to the UN Country Team in Myanmar in the early recovery and recovery coordination; and to capture lessons learnt and best practices of early recovery and recovery coordination. A small field visit with Mingalar Myanmar took place.

- WHO's External Coordination and Resource Mobilization visited Pyapon on the 17 October. The mission met with the health cluster and had bilateral meetings with other organizations.

- On 20 October, the General Soe Naing, Minister responsible for Pyapon Nargis response, and U Than Oo, the Director General of Relief and Resettlement Department, opened the training of trainers (ToT) for Natural Disasters Preparedness Management Course No 5/2008 in Pyapon. The ToT was organized by the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement and targeted government participants.

SECTORAL UPDATE

In the Pyapon hub, 8 clusters/working groups currently have active coordination mechanism at the hub level:

- Accountability working group (chaired by OCHA)

- Education (UNICEF),

- Food (WFP)

- Health & Nutrition (alternately chaired by UNICEF and TMO,

- Livelihoods working group (OCHA)

- Logistics (WFP),

- Child Protection (World Vision),

- Shelter (World Vision)

- WASH (UNICEF)

In total, 28 agencies (5 UN agencies, 10 INGOs, 13 LNGOs) are present in the Pyapon hub.

CHILD PROTECTION

- According to World Vision, 12 Child Friendly Spaces (CFSs) in Pyapon Township and 21 in Dedaye are still running well. An evaluation workshop for 3 townships, Pyapon, Dedaye and Bogale take place on 23 and 24 October at Pyapon World Vision Office.

- UNICEF (through partner agencies like AFXB, MCC, YKBWA, NYWCA) is running 29 CFS and 2 Community Resource Centres in Pyapon and Dedaye Township up to now.

EDUCATION

- Save the Children plans to renovate 8 schools in Pyapon Township. Its 20 Children Friendly Spaces (CFS) are running well. Out of these 20 CFS, 7 have been selected for upgrading to Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD).

FOOD

- WFP conducted a Nutrition and Corn Soya Blend (CSB) Cooking Demonstration on the 15-16 October to its staff and Cooperating Partners.

HEALTH & NUTRITION

- Save the Children is implementing the Exclusive Breast Feeding promotion in 77 villages.

- On the 10 October, Marie Stope International (MSI) and Pact Myanmar donated medicines and medical equipments to the Pyapon District Hospital.

LIVELIHOODS

- Help from Germany has finished distributing fertilizer [1217 bags (one bag per acre)] in Kha Naung Village Tract in Kyaiklat Township. They will continue in Kaing Chaung and Kalayat villages in the coming week. They have plans to distribute seeds for cucumbers, papaya and bitter gourd (Taiwan) to the farmers.

- Care Myanmar, will organize livestock training to village volunteers in cooperation with the Department of Livestock.

SHELTER

- Care Myanmar has been conducting assessment for the construction of Cyclone Shelters.

- Save the Children has finished its emergency shelter distribution on 15 October. They have distributed thatch for roofing in 20 villages in 16 village tracts.

- AFXB has finished the construction of 10 houses out of 30 planned. The houses are made with thatched roof, bamboo sheet wall and hard wood frames, costing around 500,000 MMK per unit.

WASH

- World Vision has finished cleaning 40 ponds cleaning and now testing water in these ponds. They have also finished the distribution of 500 latrine pans/pipes/bamboos in 23 Village Tracts. Hygiene promotion training for 3 volunteers per village is still ongoing.

- Myanmar Health Assistants' Association (MHAA) is constructing 491 latrines in the urban area (Ward No. (17) of Pyapon) in cooperation with UNICEF.

CROSS-CUTTING

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR): Mingalar Myanmar has a long term plan for planting mangroves in Labutta, Ngapudaw, Bogale and Pyapon, in cooperation with the Government. The implementation will take 3 to 10 years.