Florida Catholic | Floridians Respond To Myanmar Tragedy

Floridians respond to Myanmar tragedy

JOHN A. TORRES and DENISE O’TOOLE KELLY | THE FLORIDA CATHOLIC

Published: 05.21.08

Today, the media is capable of bringing news of human suffering caused by disasters to our attention with lighting speed. Journalism – truthful words and images – has the power to help those in need. In countries like Myanmar where journalism is repressed for fear of truth, people suffer even more.

Noted photojournalist James Whitlow Delano was already in Myanmar on another assignment when the recent cyclone lashed across that county. He presents a first hand account in words and pictures at The Digital Journalist.

– Ed Foster Jr. | 05.23.08

ORLANDO | Kim Nu dialed the numbers nervously just as she had for every hour of every day since the May 3 cyclone devastated her homeland of Myanmar. Then finally her prayers were answered on Mother’s Day, May 11, when a familiar voice answered the phone so many thousands of miles away in the city of Yangon. Her mother was safe.

“I had been calling every hour since the cyclone,” said Nu, who works for Catholic Charities in Orlando helping to resettle refugees. “But I couldn’t get through.”

Cyclone Nargis flooded the low-lying delta areas of Myanmar – formerly known as Burma – a week earlier. Myanmar’s government said May 16 that close to 77,800 people had died. The Red Cross said the toll may be as high as 128,000; the U.N. estimates more than 100,000 died. The United Nations also said 2.5 million people are in desperate need of food, water, shelter and medical care. Aid groups had reached only 270,000 by May 16, The Associated Press reported.

In Florida, people such as Nu with relatives in the isolated Asian nation weren’t the only ones appalled by the magnitude of the disaster. In Catholic dioceses and parishes throughout the state, calls for special collections and individual donations – to be funneled to the devastated areas through Catholic Charities agencies and Catholic Relief Services – went out within days of the storm.

“The disaster unfolding in Myanmar … as a result of Cyclone Nargis is far worse than anyone had anticipated – torrential rains, flooding and strong winds have killed thousands and made thousands more homeless,” Gloria Luna, director of social advocacy for the Archdiocese of Miami, wrote in a plea for monetary donations. Material goods such as food and clothing aren’t being collected, she noted, “due to the inherent difficulties associated with transporting the items in a timely and cost-effective manner.”

Catholic Relief Services liaisons in Florida dioceses were working to get out the message that would-be contributors should not be dissuaded by reports that Myanmar’s ruling military junta was blocking much of the international aid being sent to the country, particularly the services of Western relief workers. For example, Kathleen Kirley, CRS representative for the Diocese of Venice, distributed a flyer that could be reproduced in parish bulletins along with an e-mail outlining how the U.S. bishops’ international aid agency’s relationships with other Catholic agencies around the globe and with the church inside Myanmar are allowing donations from Americans to reach those in need.

CRS is one of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service organizations in the Caritas International network working in more than 200 countries and territories. Caritas workers were already in Myanmar when the cyclone made landfall and have been able to help at least 40,000 people in the hard-hit Ayeyarwady and Yangon regions. Also, small teams of church volunteers organized through the Archdiocese of Yangon, Caritas and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar are offering medical care and moral support in the Archdiocese of Yangon and Pathein Diocese, CRS officials have said.

The e-mail distributed in the Venice Diocese quoted CRS President Ken Hackett: “The international Catholic community is now providing support for our local Catholic Church partners in Myanmar to save lives. Through them, we are able to reach the most devastated areas with urgent humanitarian assistance.”

The St. Petersburg Diocese also suggested those wanting to offer assistance to Myanmar contact Catholic Relief Services. But Howard McNier, who is attending St. John Vianney Parish in St. Pete Beach after recently returning from Myanmar and Thailand where he is involved with the Redemptorist Fathers’ service to Burmese orphans, said direct donations for that work would help, too. Schools supported by the religious community were leveled by the cyclone, he said, and nearly 1,000 children have been brought to other Redemptorist schools and orphanages.

“Desperately now, we’re just trying to feed everybody,” said McNier, who plans to return to the region.

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami and several Islamic centers in south Florida met at a local mosque May 14 to plead for funds for the victims of the cyclone.

“I am very pleased that the local Catholic and Muslim communities are working together to respond in faith, charity and justice to the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar,” said Archbishop John C. Favalora. “The Catholic and Islamic faiths teach that we are to be attentive to the needs of others. This is an opportunity for Catholics and Muslims in south Florida, along with people of all faiths, to work collaboratively to alleviate human suffering and to promote solidarity.”

In the Diocese of Palm Beach, Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito issued a combined request for prayers and donations for the victims of the Myanmar cyclone, as well as the devastating May 12 earthquake in China, a recent tornado in Oklahoma, and the ongoing hunger crisis in Haiti and other countries throughout the world. He asked that parishes take up a special collection as soon as possible, which the diocese will forward to CRS and Catholic Charities in Oklahoma.

Myanmar native Nu, though, said she hopes to deliver aid in a personal way. She was concerned not only for her mother, but also her sister, nephew and several aunts and uncles. Nu came to the United States in 2004 and works with dozens of Burmese refugees who have settled in the Orlando area. Luckily, she said, many of the former refugees were from north Myanmar and did not have family affected by the terrible storm.

But Yangon is close enough to the severely damaged coastal areas that Nu was terribly worried about her relatives. “Many roofs in Rangoon are damaged and many trees fell onto houses and roads,” she said. “Thankfully my family is OK.”

Nu had been planning a visit back home for later this year. When she heard reports of the cyclone her first instinct was to try and get on the next possible plane. “I wanted to fly there right away and be with my family,” she said. “But I knew there was little I could do.”

Nu still hopes to go back and offer whatever assistance she can for those displaced by the flooding and violent winds that accompanied the cyclone.

“I was here in Florida during the 2004 hurricanes, so I know what kind of damage can be done,” she said. “I just want to help people.” n

Florida Catholic special contributor Janet Shelton, Ana Rodriguez-Soto of the Florida Catholic staff and Catholic News Service contributed to this story.

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