Fruitful recovery

Only a few of Daw Lay Lay Khins ducks survived cyclone Nargis. And like so many others she had to sell off her few belongings to raise money for urgent needs in the immediate aftermath. Recently she was provided with 20 new ducks under the Red Cross “asset recovery program”, which also provided her with a small cash grant. She used the money to buy another ten ducks, so now she has 30, which she raises together with her brother, who lives next door in a small village in Kyakliat township.

The ducks have already started generating an income. They lay an average of 15 eggs per day, which are sold at the local market. As part of the program, Daw Lay Lay Khin also received training on duck farming organized in cooperation with the townships Livestock Breeding and Veterinary department. Thanks to her new income she now plans to buy another 20 ducks and get back owning 50 – just like before Nargis.

Fruitful recovery

U Myo Min Htut, is a good example of how it only takes a few months to get back to a fairly normal life, if you get a bit of assistance and incenLve. The 45‐year old farmer is walking among tall banana palms on three plots in Maubin township.

Many bananas are ready to be sold, and U Myo Min Htut is expecting a yearly income of around 1000 US dollars – if there are no new disasters.

That is even more than before Nargis, where the family could earn around 750 dollars yearly from their two banana plantation. But all 500 palms and the land was destroyed during the cyclone, and since then U Myo Min Htut has not been able to return to banana‐farming as he had no capital to invest. Instead he scraped by as a casual labourer taking odd jobs and growing and selling a few vegetables.

Then in December 2009 he was assisted with hundreds of new banana palms and a cash grant of the equivalent of 30 dollars under the Red Cross “asset recovery program”. And a few months later he is ready to pluck and sell his first bananas in almost two years.