Specific trends define a generation. I’ll be twenty-one next week (woohoo!) which means I was born in 1987. Whenever I’m with peers and someone mentions things like pogs, “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego” or those cuddly little Pound Puppies, eyes light up and reminiscent conversation starts to flow.

It’s crazy how TV shows, music and movies affect the culture of a generation. But besides media, another trend my generation gets to be a part of is the giving trend.

It’s exciting to see the number of donations up on the monitor in the GlobalGiving office. Or when the cyclone hit my home country of Myanmar, I was fielding phone calls left and right from people who wanted to help. There’s a lot more generosity out there than people often think.

This is why it made me especially happy to see The Simpsons Movie being sold on ebay, with a percentage of the profit going to help the Myanmar cyclone relief! Friends, the trends are comin’ together in a real good way.

My brother and I grew up watching The Simpsons, the longest running comedy on television. Sure the characters make their share of mistakes: Bart sells his soul to Millhouse for five bucks, Homer gains 60 pounds to qualify as disabled.

But if you stick with them through the episodes, good almost always prevails. We learn that even a guy like Homer Simpson has a generous heart. He offers Apu a place to stay when he loses his job, arranges a second wedding with Marge to make up for their lousy first ceremony (complete with a Doobie Brothers wedding band), and gives up a chance at wealth to allow his daughter Maggie to keep her beloved teddy bear.

If Homer can give, we all can give.

So feel good about giving: sit back and enjoy the movies with America’s favorite family. Visit www.ebaygivingworks.com to find The Simpsons and other products that allow you to give. D’oh!

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  On my visit back home to Myanmar, I traveled with a team from International Development Enterprises (a GlobalGiving partner) to Dedeya, a village five hours by car from Yangon, the former capital. There, I sat with U Aung Soe and Daw Chi Chi, a young couple with a baby girl, in what was left of their thatched hut. “The baby hasn’t cried since the storm” Daw Chi Chi told me, “I think she is too scared. She fell in the water that night and we almost lost her” she said, tears slowly beginning to form behind her eyes (an unusual sight for most Burmese people). I learned that her family had put their entire life savings - equivalent to $200- in a small envelope beside a bamboo bed mat. The waves washed all the notes away. As Daw Chi Chi began to breastfeed her baby, she gently lifted up the infants head to reveal a deep cut on the back of her skull. “The waves and the wind stirred up everything in the house and a knife we use for cooking cut through her skin” she explained. My Burmese allowed me to understand her story but I was unable to form sentences back, I could only nod and listen. I finally mustered up, “I’m so sorry.”The father turned to me, “It is my fate. I paid for my sins that night.” I wanted to tell him he didn’t deserve this. That it was a horrible natural disaster that the government only made worse by not responding to their needs fast enough…nothing to do with what a person deserved.

Perhaps the only silver lining to this disaster is that the international community has been forced to turn its eyes to Myanmar: the situation is no longer a political catastrophe, it is a humanitarian tragedy. Although it’s taking some time, local and international NGO’s have been able to gain considerable access to hard-hit villages. GlobalGiving has done extensive research to find out which organizations have been able to get aid to the people who need it most. In the most immediate relief stages, some GG partners are addressing basic human needs by providing tarps used for roofing and clean water. The response from villagers has been tremendous- upon receiving a tarp, one lady smiled and said, “I’m going to sleep well tonight!” The cost of a roofing tarp is approximately $15 and a water basket used for clean water is about $20. For the thousands of cyclone survivors who lost everything, a dry place to sleep and clean water to drink are two necessities that have allowed people to finally smile again.

To help, visit www.globalgiving.com/myanmar.

Note: Names of villagers have been changed for their protection.

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Here are a few stories and observations from my most recent trip to Myanmar. I’m Katie, a new intern at GlobalGiving. I moved with my family from Los Angeles to Myanmar in 2003 and I’ve spent every summer and winter vacation back home since. This last visit, instead of karaoke(ing) with friends or sitting around at tea shops, I got a chance to help out with the cyclone relief efforts in some of the hardest hit areas of the delta.

Many of the accounts are the same: the water level rose at about four in the afternoon, the tides churning like an underwater earthquake. Then, darkness comes without even the light of the moon, bringing with it engulfing waves up to ten feet. Villagers in the delta flee to the sturdiest places they can find - the wooden house of a village leader, a monastery, or a tall dike in the rice patty fields. But for so many, they stand no chance. It is the perfect storm.

I’m not sure when or where it will all hit me. I am currently sitting on the eighteen hour flight back to the states after spending two and a half intensive weeks in Myanmar. I can’t even begin to process everything I’ve seen after cyclone Nargis devastated the country less than a month ago. More than the sight of dead bodies, flattened villages or destroyed crops, the stories I’ve heard have put a move on my heart so great, I found myself spending many interviews trying to hold back unearned tears as I listened to people speak so matter-of-factly about the realities of their extreme hardship.

I’ll never forget that trip to Pyat Pong, a village region deep in the Irrawaddy Delta. Corpses of men, women and children lie face down in the flooded rice fields or floating in the muddy waters of the river, still uncollected. “I was the only one in my family to survive” U Soe Myint, a 32 year old man from a nearby village, told me, as he sat hunched over on a log. “That night, the wind knocked over a tree outside my house and the trunk fell on my back” he continued with deadened emotion. As he slowly lifted the back of his tattered shirt, he said, “It’s broken now.”
“Are you in pain?” I immediately asked. He nodded.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
As his deep eyes looked up at me, I wished I hadn’t asked such a stupid question. It made me feel dizzy, the thought of this man sitting for a month with a broken back without any help.

Note: The names of villagers have been changed for their protection.

To be continued tomorrow.

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An update from friends on the ground in Myanmar tell us that the situation continues to be dire and that every bit of help that we can muster will save lives.

“The skies have turned anthracite grey this afternoon in Yangon - an ominous sign that heavy rains are on their way in a few minutes. Winds are pushing the temporary plastic windows up against the back of my chair as I write. On my desk are photographs taken earlier this week of families in the Irrawaddy Delta huddled under a fallen tree during a downpour. These are dark days in Myanmar.

The magnitude of the crisis here is almost unimaginable. The latest realistic estimates are that over 100,000 people have died and about 2 million people are affected. It’s hard to get one’s head around this. We’ve had our staff out in the affected areas for over thirteen days now. They come back and forth with so many tragic stories. Whole families drowned. Sole survivors of an entire village. People with broken hips and major injuries with no one to care for them. Houses obliterated by 120mph winds. Countless swollen dead bodies floating in the small creeks and rivers that crisscross the Delta. Skin sandblasted raw from the wind. Families stripped of all of their possessions by the cyclone. Suicidal survivors. Traumatized children.

Almost two weeks after the cyclone tore through the Delta, thousands of families are now lined up along the high ground of rural roads with nothing to eat and virtually no shelter. Hundreds and hundreds of devastated but accessible villages have still not received one ounce of assistance. A massive public health crisis is emerging as people who are weak, traumatized, malnourished and often injured have no shelter or food. Children and elderly people with diarrhea are wasting away. The amount of aid reaching victims in just a trickle compared to the millions of people in desperate need.

Margaret, we are grateful for all of the funds Global Giving is able to raise. Support is badly needed for this relief stage and also for the recovery stage over the next 125 days. We can assure contributers that their assistance is really getting to people in need, right now, every day.”

Emergency Help for Myanmar Cyclone Victims

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Disasters are nasty business. This past week has tested the disaster relief machines in new ways. There is never an easy disaster relief scenario-all bring with them unanticipated complications. Nevertheless, Myanmar and China are arguably two of the more difficult environments in which to operate. There are few nonprofit organizations with authority to operate in these countries, and getting the needed resources–aid and expertise–to where they will make the most difference is challenging to the best of the logistics professionals. I will focus in this posting on Myanmar, and follow up on China when we have more information.

GlobalGiving’s strong network of project partners has been mobilizing to meet the needs of the Cyclone Nargis survivors. I am pleased to report that more than $68,000 has already been disbursed to projects working on the ground in Myanmar. It is an honor to play even a small part in helping bring resources to their efforts. The projects on the GlobalGiving Myanmar Relief page have been posted by existing partners that are using their in-country staffs and/or their tried and true skills in disaster relief. They are leveraging their in-country offices and coordinating partnerships with other organizations to address the varied and extensive needs.

GlobalGiving has great respect for those courageous people in the field best situated to assess the situation and formulate strategies to save lives. There is even more pressure on them now, considering international experts are having difficulties in getting visas to enter Myanmar. At the time of writing this post, International Development Enterprises and Save The Children are currently working on the ground in Myanmar, while CHF and International Medical Corps are working through partners and negotiating the challenges of getting visas for their staff and aid into the country. To ensure we can provide full transparency and be the best stewards of our donors’ funds, we have defined our key operating tenets in supporting disaster relief efforts:

-In order to post a disaster relief project, a project partner must have pre-existing program operations in Myanmar or significant experience in disaster relief with a credible strategy to achieve a significant impact in the current situation
-For organizations without staff on the ground in the affected area, we will only disburse funding once they have demonstrated their ability to execute their relief efforts. If these organizations are not able to execute their posted projects, we will reallocate funds in consultation with the donors to these projects.
-We commit to complete transparency. Our project partner organizations are dealing with an evolving, fluid and, possibly, volatile situation. Projects might not run with their planned strategies, so reporting on progress is a necessary courtesy we owe our donors.

I want to thank all the generous individuals and corporate partners that have dug deep to help in this crisis situation. We welcome your feedback and your continued support.

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A friend writes from Myanmar:

This is the worst disaster I have ever been in. The situation in Yangon is growing more desperate everyday as there is no electricity or water and food is getting very scarce. Just today, a women on our street came to us with here three young children. Her mother had been killed in the cyclone and the children had not eaten in two days.

We have made it to the only location in Yangon with an email connection tonight (tuesday).
We are save and fine… but the situation here is very, very grim. Tremendous devastation.

We have staff in practically all of the affected areas and are desperately trying to find out the condition of about 40 that are still unaccounted for.

Relief isn’t what we do, but we are being pressed into it given the circumstances.
If Global Giving could join an appeal that would be very much appreciated.

Will write as soon again as soon as we can. Thanks again for your concern.

I and many others are going to help Myanmar for Mothers Day. Nothing would make our own mothers happier. If you want to join us, please click here and do what you can.

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