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.