What’s worse is when there’s no hospital to go to for treatment. For remote communities like his, medical care can be days away and only reached by foot. Because wars steal kid’s access to healthcare, Partners supports local clinics and health workers in these hard-to-reach places.

“I have been to this clinic many times,” Saw Eh Taena shared outside a Partners-funded clinic. Each time, health workers had the medicine to treat him and vigilantly monitored him when his symptoms were so bad he needed to stay through the night. Today, “the attacks are basically gone”, he said. It’s your love-in-action that stocks medicine cabinets and trains the health workers that make this life-saving work possible.

Photo: The clinic where Saw Eh Taena found help for his asthma in Karen State, Myanmar.

But good health isn’t all that’s stolen. When it comes to education, even before the earthquake, approximately 3.7 million children in Myanmar didn’t have access. As kids are recruited for fighting and schools are attacked, it’s clear that wars disrupt learning.

“Because of the conflict, I have to study in the jungle. When the jets fly over, children cry, and the teachers find it hard to care for all of them. Children sit on the ground, with not enough notebooks and pens”, said Saw Eh Taena. His mother is like most parents in war zones; she believes education is the key to giving her child a future beyond the violence and poverty they are experiencing; a life defined by more opportunities and dreams fulfilled.

"When the jets fly over, children cry, and the teachers find it hard to care for all of them."

The children who remain determined to attend these hidden schools are the reason that your love-in-action is more vital than ever—strengthening their schools by providing essential learning supplies and providing support for safe boarding homes where students displaced by fighting can continue their studies.

Wars also strangle economies and livelihoods. They make it harder for parents to put food on the table for their kids. “We don’t have time to grow rice or vegetables. The transportation of goods is difficult, so the price of food goes up significantly, especially during the rainy season.” Love-in-action delivers bags of rice to communities like Saw Eh Taena’s when all other avenues of keeping children fed are exhausted.

“I feel hopeless in this situation...I can’t learn in this environment. I feel like I am not free.”

Photo: Medicine supplies are running low at many clinics.

Through the summer, more brave team members will deliver what war has strangled, disrupted, and stolen from children caught in the crossfire. It’s the same love-in-action that has been at work in war zones since 1994, partnering with local networks to get help where others can’t so that kids like Saw Eh Taena aren’t robbed of the joy of good health, the freedom of a full education, and the satisfaction of having enough to eat.

We are grateful for a generous supporter who has offered a $25,000 Summer Match Challenge, making it possible to help even more children, like Saw Eh Taena.

As the days get longer,—as global support for relief and development is on the decline—we encourage you to consider sharing the warmth of your summer with Saw Eh Taena and other children who grow up in conflict zones. You can rest assured knowing that when you give, you gift will be matched for double the impact, meaning even more kids will receive critical medical care, access to life-altering education, and the sustenance they need to learn and play.

They’ll be able to breathe a sigh of relief.

The full scale of the damage and the number of deaths is still unclear. More than 140 deaths have been reported thus far, and the death toll continues to rise. Given the ongoing civil war in Myanmar and the junta’s often limited transparency, information about the full extent may be limited.

Our local partners near Taunggyi, southeast of Mandalay, are assessing the immediate and most urgent needs. Our relief team is rapidly mobilizing and will arrive in the country tomorrow to help with the assessment and immediate crisis response. 

Before the earthquake left the country in tremors, Myanmar was already in the middle of a dire humanitarian crisis. According to OCHA, one-third of the population and 6.3 million children require humanitarian assistance. 

This is our lane: rapid relief for kids and families in times of crisis. 

We’ll be responding in the hard-to-reach places, meeting the needs of those who might otherwise fall through the gaps. 

We'll be sharing updates as our crisis response unfolds in the days ahead. Please stay with us as we stay with them. 

To fuel our team’s response on the ground, visit https://prtns.co/earthquake.

Your gift will go directly to meet the needs of these kids and families.

Especially in Sittwe. 

These are 6 pressing updates you should know about Sittwe’s escalation of violence:

The Arakan Army (AA) announced they now controlled the border township of Maungdaw in northern Rakhine State on December 8, 2024. This gave them control of the entire border area between Bangladesh and Myanmar. Fear continues to increase within the Rohingya community in Sittwe as the AA nears the capital. Intense fighting has erupted in the surrounding areas, and the Myanmar Military has increased security in the area.

The checkpoints inside the nearby camps have increased, and the Rohingya are forced to pay money to cross them, sometimes experiencing looting, the checking of their phones, and are often beaten without any reason. In the village where Partners’ adult school is located, people are not allowed to cross the checkpoints after 6 pm, so the class is now being conducted during the day.

People are trying to leave the town by boat. One of the unregistered Rohingya communities we support with monthly rice distributions had a leader arrested and accused of receiving money from people in his neighborhood who were leaving by boat. We heard that he was tortured very badly and not given food for days, before being released. 

In January, all village administrators in the camps area were told to provide young men for conscription. Those who refused were threatened with their villages being burned down. Additionally, people, including young boys aged 13-15, were being randomly arrested. In one seaside community, we occasionally support, the military arrested 70 people for conscription, with over 20 of them being underage. Parents had to pay money to release these young boys. 

The internet connection in Sittwe is almost completely down, and mobile services have been largely cut off outside of small pockets of connection in the downtown area. 

Meanwhile, more than 5,000 displaced Rohingya sheltering at a camp in Rakhine’s Pauktaw township are in urgent need of food after not receiving aid for more than a year, according to Radio Free Asia. 

Last week, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced devastating cuts to food support in Myanmar. The cuts will impact almost 100,000 internally displaced people in central Rakhine who will have no access to food without WFP assistance, including Rohingya communities in camps. 

“Overall, the situation in Sittwe has become very tense. I would personally describe it as a ticking time bomb, with people unsure of when it might explode.” - Partners team member

We’ve been working alongside the Rohingya since 2012. Over that time and to this day, our team has been responding to the ongoing critical needs of displaced and oppressed Rohingya communities, as well as empowering them through sustainable health and education initiatives.

You can help fuel our ongoing response providing emergency relief and establishing access to healthcare and education for refugees in Bangladesh and displaced families who are suffering extreme persecution in Myanmar.

While out fishing, Saw Be Bay slipped and fell on a large rock. Hard. He was in so much pain, but he knew he had to get himself back to his uncle’s house. When he reached home, he told his uncle what had happened, but not how much pain he was in. He hid how hard it was to walk. Over time, the pain began to lessen so he tried to play cane ball, football and go fishing as usual. But the pain, and even a sickness associated with it, reappeared. Even so, he received no proper treatment.

Over the next 10 years the pain became so unbearable, he could no longer walk.

3. The Myanmar military dropped a bomb near his village. Everyone ran, but Saw Be Bay could not. Terrified, he crawled on his belly to hide in a bush, believing he would die.

But he didn’t.

Like so often during times of suffering, dawn comes just after the darkest night. His schoolmistress introduced him to a Partners staff member who was traveling in the area. Together they came up with a plan. Partners staff took him to the hospital and paid for an initial diagnostic test. They helped Saw Be Bay submit that test to Burma Children Medical Fund, and his case was accepted. The surgery that he needed was going to be paid for by BCMF, but that’s not the end of the story.

The same perseverance and internal grit that Saw Be Bay had shown in his childhood was what he showed as he went through a difficult surgery and five months of treatment. 

Partners' Patient Care team took him to the hospital, provided food and hygiene items, and supported him throughout his treatment. They also made sure he had a place to stay—in a patient house provided by a friend—so he could be taken care of while he got better.

It wasn’t a magic wand. It wasn’t a quick fix. It was the heart of a young man, a local community who showed up day-after-day, and a community of generous people who stopped, saw, and responded to his needs.

Saw Be Bay didn’t stop. He didn’t die. He pushed through the hard times and life-pivots. He returned to his village—now able to walk without pain—not even feeling the aches and constant fevers like before.

Health is something we often take for granted until it's gone—then it becomes the only thing we can focus on, consuming all our attention and energy. Now, no longer in a state of physical suffering, Saw Be Bay has begun to imagine a different kind of life. His experience and healing have revealed a dream of one day serving his community as a medical professional. He hopes to live the rest of his life helping others who are suffering.

They were forcibly displaced from their land due to the Turkish occupation.

Photo: Blankets cover the windows, providing little protection in the cold of winter, in a building where families currently live.

I continued my journey to assess the conditions of families living in apartments that lack the most basic necessities. Each apartment houses three families, with a total of about 12 people. The furniture barely meets minimum standards: a worn-out carpet, three old foam mattresses, and used blankets. The doors are covered with tattered blankets, and the windows are sealed with plastic bags. Their cooking equipment consists of a small gas stove and containers filled with water due to the lack of a water tank.

Photo: an elderly gentleman who sought safety in Northeast Syria sits on a mat in the building where he found shelter.

In one apartment, I met a man with an amputated leg, and in another, there was a man with a heart condition awaiting surgery. It was difficult to continue documenting the scenes as the woman accompanying me asked sorrowfully, “How do we live? How do we access education? When will we return to our homes?”

Questions reflecting a harsh reality for which I had no answers.

The woman told me she used to live in a camp near her home in Afrin but lost hope after being displaced far from her area. She described the moments of escape, where people left their belongings behind and boarded overcrowded vehicles, fleeing the factions supported by Turkey.

Photo: a truck is packed high with a family's possessions as they travel to Northeast Syria.

So far, tens of thousands of people have been displaced to northeastern Syria, living on limited aid provided by international organizations and the host community. This aid barely meets their needs. There is no gas for cooking, no heating systems, and no water tanks.

Hygiene, education, and healthcare have become distant dreams.

The region they fled to is already suffering from significant infrastructure destruction caused by Turkish airstrikes two years ago. Electricity is scarce and provided by generators operating intermittently. The available fuel is refined using primitive methods, which are harmful to both health and the environment. Water stations are constantly targeted, and in the past month, Turkish-backed factions attempted to seize dams in northeastern Syria, causing dozens of young men to lose their lives amidst international silence.

Our ancestors always told us, “The mountains are our only friends.” Today, this saying painfully rings true as we find mercy in mountains and rocks that exceeds the cruelty of humans.

Today, we stand alongside the Kurdish families facing targeted attacks with love in action. Heaters, food packs, bedding - relief for today with the reminder that we will continue to show up as their friends. In the darkest of nights and the days of bright hope. 

Photo: a distribution of heaters for displaced families living at temporary shelters, Northeast Syria, December 2024.

Your response, your presence, is the force of love behind our ability to respond.

If you would like to join hands in solidarity with Kurdish families, you can send relief at https://prtns.co/SyriaCrisis