While LWF Myanmar continues to offer emergency assistance to IDPs in collaboration with the government and other international non-governmental organizations, it is also involved in development activities given the long-term displacement of thousands of families. The IDPs in Rakhine live in host and settlement villages and in Rohingya camps. While all three levels of settlement may look similar, each one is subject to increasing levels of security control by the government, which increasingly faces challenges from a secessionist movement.
Through funding from Canadian Lutheran World Relief (CLWR), LWF Myanmar provides the host communities and IDPs with training skills and kits for beauty salons and dressmaking, cookery, vegetable and fish farming. I remain very impressed with the LWF staff—local and international—as they work in this extremely stressful environment. From what I could observe, the support offered to date has been conscientiously and actively engaged in improving the lives of IDPs in Rakhine State.
Marcus Busch is a former president of the Winnipeg-based Canadian Lutheran World Relief, a long-standing partner of the LWF.
In 2018, the LWF country program work in Rakhine State supported nearly 95,500 IDPs and vulnerable host communities in mitigating the risks posed by disaster, improving food security and access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene, and promoting human rights and education.