Myanmar Food Relief Programme — Project Completion Report
Dear Sentinel Chain Community,
“There are normally floods, but not like this year. This year is the worst ever.”
Myint Myint Than, one of the hundreds took refuge in a shelter in Bago, Myanmar.
The floods drowned large areas of farmland and completely submerged houses, causing loss of property, threatened lives and uprooted entire communities where people and animals perished, and others made homeless are crowded inside shelters at temporary relief centers, schools, halls, and monasteries.
We invited our community to join us in our effort to help people in Myanmar who were severely impacted by the torrential floods. We organised a small donation drive, the Myanmar Flood Relief Programme that ran from 13th to 15th August 2018. Through these efforts, we raised a total of 30.32 ETH, which we converted to SGD11,709 / USD8,500. We thank those who participated.
We channelled USD3,000 to Border Areas Development Association — BDA to support those impacted in Bago region. BDA is a local NGO that helps children, and families with children. With the remaining USD5,500, we purchased 11.8 tons of animal feeds from Green Field International (GFI), and with the assistance of the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department (LBVD), the feeds were distributed to farmers in affected regions of Kayin, Mon and Bago. GFI waived transport charges and topped up the value of the feeds to 13 tons. Whilst Bago is about two hours south from Yangon, Kayin and Mon are six hours away.
It was very heartening that our partner Myanma Insurance (MI) organised their own fundraising in support of our efforts to help flood-affected community. Their drive culminated in a sum of 1,000,000 MMK (approx.USD 730) raised. As expressed by MI managing director, Dr. Sandar Oo, MI is “…an organization that doesn’t pay very big salary…”, hence this amount speaks for the shared values and vision of InfoCorp and MI. MI split their funds raised equally between LBVD and BDA to purchase animal feeds and children’s supplies.
On 18 September, together with MI, InfoCorp attended the donation presentation ceremony in Bago. The Bago government identified 610 most affected students from 61 basic education high schools in Bago who each received 10,000 MMK. Here are some photos of the presentation, and link to our colleague, TF Tang’s speech during the event.
Tang shared thoughts with the team after the event -
“Today, InfoCorp did a very good deed to help these affected children. The children and teachers were emotional as they and their families suffered from the impact of the flood. The Ministry of Education department allowed us to interview two children after the event.
Ko Pyie Sone, our Myanmar colleague, interviewed them to understand how the flood has affected them personally and what they are going to do with the money they received. We got to know that their houses were flooded and their family lost everything. They had no other clothes to wear and no food to eat then. Now that the flood water has subsided, they can return to their homes. With the donation money, they will buy uniform, shoes and stationeries so they can go to school to study. Ko Pyie was overwhelmed with emotions on hearing that.
Another colleague, Ko Than Swe Lay also learned that the teachers and the students had to rent a few small lorries to send them from their respective villages to come over to attend the rehearsal yesterday and the ceremony today. On hearing that, we spoke to BDA and both BDA and InfoCorp Myanmar agreed to cover their transport costs to the event. InfoCorp Myanmar will further donate around SGD 200 worth towards covering their transport cost and BDA will cover the rest.
The Bago Region Minister of Cooperation & Social Affairs, BDA and the Bago Region Ministry of Education thanked us for our support.
We have a very strong operations team in Myanmar and I am confident we can continue to do great things here!”
Thank you once again to all who supported us in helping the Myanmarese cope and recover from the torrential floods this year. Sentinel Chain works to drive long term impact to the unbanked with our community who share our values, and whilst we cannot prevent natural disasters from occurring, we will continue to do what we can to help alleviate short-term negative impact. We hope in time, more of our community will see the win-win proposition of ‘giving back’ to society together with us, into the community that we are all are invested in.
InfoCorp Technologies Pte. Ltd. Founded in 2015 with headquarters in Singapore, InfoCorp Technologies’ aim as an integrated FinTech and AgriTech company is to bring inclusive financial services to the livestock industry in emerging markets via its blockchain-based platform, FarmTrek. Bringing together best talent across the globe, InfoCorp has staff in Rwanda, Myanmar, India, Vietnam, Argentina, and the US. FarmTrek was successfully piloted with two Myanmar government agencies and launched in 2019. Its innovation has been acknowledged as one of 10 winning business models for women entrepreneurs, co-funded by the United Nations to improve access to finance for Women micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) via the UN FinTech Innovation Fund.
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