Fortunately, we’ve joined up with Nina & John Cassils, and their very worthy and credible non-profit Myanmar Relief effort. John and Nina have been heroes on this side of the world, selflessly working 20 hour days raising awareness and funds, and making sure that all relief gets to the people in the worst affected areas. Nature’s Path is having the honour of contributing several pallet loads of energy bars that will make a difference between life and death for many families. I heartily urge all who can help with food, medicine, water purification equipment and funds, to support legitimate Myanmar Relief, where every day, every hour counts.”
Arran & Ratana Stephens

Source: UNICEF Myanmar May 22, 2008 11:16am

AZG sent 250 national staff from the large existing programmes in Myanmar and used the medical reserves that were already present in the country.

In the first weeks AZG sent out 8 distribution teams to ensure the distribution of food (rice, oil, fish, beans) and non-food items (sheeting, bed nets, blankets, toolkits) and 8 watsan teams to clean up ponds and wells. Distribution was executed at household level, ensuring that all recipients did acquire the necessary items. AZG sent also 28 mobile medical teams to conduct medical consultations, set up feeding centers for malnutrition and opened 8 fixed clinics in the Ngapudaw and Laputta townships.

Nina Cassil’s visit to Myanmar this Christmas will be her 13th visit to Southeast Asia in eight years. She can’t help it. She and her husband fell in love with that part of the world during their travels and can’t stop going back. But the couple’s most recent visit will also be an arduous journey as they travel by bus and boat to see how money from their CW Asia Fund helped aid those in the path of Cyclone Nargis in May. While large non-governmental organizations struggled to get food and medicine to residents of the Irrawaddy Delta, the Cassils delivered 8,000 pounds of donated medicine with relative ease.

“I don’t know why the international community just feels that they can’t work or do anything because of the government, ” Nina Cassils said. “It’s really not the case.” Governments could have easily partnered with aid agencies, including World Vision and Save the Children, which operate in Myanmar, said Cassils, a 54-year-old resident of Point Grey who talked to the Courier Wednesday on the phone from Hong Kong. Working with aid agencies is exactly what the Cassils did. The Clinton Global Initiative invited the Cassils to Hong Kong to talk to international heads of state, non-government organizations, businesspeople and philanthropists about how they can work together to improve education and public health and tackle problems involving energy and climate change in Asia.

“There’s been so much focus on Africa with all the celebrities, all the rock stars and the actresses and actors and the Gates Foundation and the Clintons…For the last four and five generations money’s been thrown at Africa and it still has not lifted them out of poverty, ” Cassils said. “Twice as many poor people live in Asia.”

The Cassils have done philanthropic work in Southeast Asia for more than a decade. John Cassils, the retired founder of Strand Development Corp., worked in Hong Kong and Thailand in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the couple would take side trips and explore the countryside, making social connections along the way.

John Beeching, a retired Roman Catholic brother from Victoria who now lives in Bangkok, has served as their mentor. Beeching has done development work for 40 years, speaks Burmese and possesses a deep understanding of an array of religions. He teaches Buddhism in Austria and Taoism in Hong Kong.

The Cassils’ work isn’t based on religious belief–they see their efforts as strictly humanitarian. The Cassils registered their fund with the Tides Canada Foundation three years ago at the urging of their friends Sue and Wieland Wettstein from Calgary. The full name of their fund is the Cassils Wettstein Asia Fund. They’ve solicited money from others only since Cyclone Nargis hit. They previously spent their own money combined with generous donations from friends, family and colleagues to help grassroots agencies improve the health and education of children in countries including India, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. The victims of Cyclone Nargis remain in dire straights, with 500,000 families in Myanmar without aid. To focus on helping those families, Cassils and CW Asia volunteer Leanne Chan created the Myanmar $5 for 5 Campaign, which runs until Christmas. Donors can give $5, which feeds five families for a week.

“I’d never want someone to ever think that what they have to give is too little,” said Cassils. “This shows the impact of our currency. The value of our money abroad is so valuable and it can help so many.” Chan hopes those who can’t afford to donate will pass information about the campaign on to five friends. Cassils has packed all kinds of medical equipment for their trip which will take them to Cambodia and Myanmar. She gives items to local groups to disburse when they do outreach. “There’s things that we take for granted,” she said. “The hospital we support in Myanmar has one laryngoscope [to look down throats]. They see 450 patients a day.”

For more information about the Myanmar $5 for 5 Campaign, see www.givemeaning.com

Maybe they should call her Cyclone Nina. When she sits down for a chat with the Asian Pacific Post at a Kitsilano diner, Nina Cassils’ first act is to start dispensing gifts, like a hand-woven basket from the Rawang community in Burma-Myanmar’s Kachin State, along with a rapid-fire history lesson of the region. All this while simultaneously gushing over the Madonna concert she’d attended with a bunch of girlfriends the night before at BC Place.

The youthful-looking 54 year-old is warm, open, and super-kinetic. She leaps from topic-to-topic without pause, sometimes tripping over her words in the rush to communicate as much information as she can.
When she empties her bag on the table in front of her, it’s a messy snapshot of the work that Cassils and her husband Dr. John Cassils are currently engaged in – along with their friends Susan and Wieland Wettstein – on behalf of their Cassils Wettstein Asia Fund. The Fund has spent the last 10 years improving the lives of indigent children and families in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Burma-Myanmar, throwing its energies behind libraries, orphanages, schools, hospitals, and other relief efforts.

To date, over $3 million has been raised in direct aid benefiting hundreds – if not thousands – of children and their impoverished families. There’s a handsome spiro-bound booklet produced for potential donors to a pediatric hospital in Angkor, Cambodia – a “ten-year dream,” in Nina’s words. There’s a brochure about the Moo Baa Dek orphanage in Thailand. “We’ve been with them for 10 years,” she says. “There’s about 150 children here and it’s actually become so large it’s its own village. It’s neat.”

Next to that is a two-page breakdown of the 5 For 5 Campaign, which seeks to raise money for the victims of Cyclone Nargis. Burma-Myanmar was battered by the cyclone in May, effecting 2.4 million people and leaving behind an official death toll close to 300,000, including 150,000 children (although experts suggest the death toll is closer to one million). The 5 For 5 Campaign is Nina’s priority at present. But she confesses with a sigh that her first efforts in the wake of Cyclone Nargis damn near killed her, when the CW Asia Fund snapped into immediate action with its ad-hoc Myanmar Relief campaign. “I was working around the clock from May 8, and it wasn’t until August that I took time off,” she says. “Nobody saw me.” She continues, “We raised over $700,000 and the bulk of the money came from 42 people.” “That is so generous,” she exclaims, shaking her head. “We decided to give it to four organizations because we have an eight year working relationship with them already, and we trust them.” CW Asia Fund directed the funds to Save the Children, AZG/Medecins Sans Frontieres Holland, the Metta Development Foundation, and the MFH & Medical Relief Society. “100 per cent of that money went to Myanmar, without any interference,” she states. “It didn’t get hung up. The UN lost tons of money in conversion rates and things, we didn’t. We know how to do it. We did it quietly, and it’s all been accounted for.”

Essentially, the Cassils and Wettsteins have developed a network of trusted friends and partners across the region – along with a community of donors at home, mostly friends and family – in a successful effort to circumvent the larger, more cumbersome organizations that traffic, as Nina says, in the “charity business.”

“We can do that because we know the area,” she explains. “We’re on the ground there.” Furthermore, the CW Asia Fund doesn’t usually solicit money; it acts as advisers, directing funds to scrupulous organizations and projects. “When you’re small, you can react fast,” she says. “And then if there’s an emergency and somebody has to make a decision, they don’t have to go through a bureaucracy, or a board of directors. But there’s a lot of little organizations, and you tell them what you want them to do with your money and they can get back to you within the week.”

“That’s why we started to rethink how we wanted to give our money to charity,” she continues. “I think that’s one of the reasons we get so many phone calls, and people will ask us, ‘Where are you giving your money?’ Or vice versa. I’ll call someone and say, ‘I hear you’re going to Angkor to see the ruins, would you mind taking some medicine over and dropping it off?’” She laughs, “It’s very, very grass roots.” So grass roots, in fact, that the Cassils travel at least twice a year to Southeast Asia, dropping in on their various projects, and re-igniting a love affair with a part of the world the couple first began visiting when they would travel to Hong Kong and Bangkok on behalf of John’s work in real estate. Nina’s drive to help disadvantaged children, meanwhile, is something that also informs her day-job on the board of directors at Vancouver’s Arts Umbrella. So what is it that compels the Cassils, the Wettsteins, and their friends and family to get involved? “People give for so many different reasons,” Nina answers. “They give because they have more than they need, or they’ve grown up in a family of giving and it’s a part of their culture, or they’re born with it. And some people have just learned that it’s a thing they should be doing, and people care.” With that, Cyclone Nina gathers up her things for a Halloween date with her friends. The remnants of some ice cream, herbal tea, and a couple of beers remain. Naturally, she picked up the tab.

On the web: www.cwasiafund.org

Over the past four months, we have made tremendous progress towards assisting in the recovery from Cyclone Nargis made possible with your generous donations. Although this disaster has faded from the media, the job of rebuilding lives continues to be a challenge.

Along with providing for the most basic needs of simple food, water and temporary shelter, the donated funds have been used for:

• safe shelters for child protection;
• specialty food bars to curb malnutrition;
• critically required antibiotics and other medicines not available in large quantities within the country;
• materials to construct permanent housing; and
• psycho-social support for children and their families.

On August 6th, close to 8,000 lbs of donated medicines and high energy food were successfully air lifted to Yangon from Vancouver with 100% of the goods cleared without interference from government authorities. The value of this shipment exceeded $300,000 CDN.

We are pleased to report that all goods have been received in full by AZG – Medicine Sans Frontiers (Myanmar). Working directly with excellent global organizations with outposts in Myanmar, allows the donations in kind and shipment to be effectively used and distributed for the benefit of the Cyclone victims. All your cash donations were successfully transferred in USD without any exchange loss or risk of compromise.

During this crisis, the CW Asia Fund facilitated the transfer of over $855,000 USD of which $670,000 was raised in Canada with the help of the Radcliffe Foundation and $186,000 internationally. In addition, $444,880 of the $670,000 that was raised from Canadian individuals was matched by CIDA. These funds are being allocated by CIDA to established Canadian and international humanitarian organizations for relief efforts that benefit the people in Myanmar.

Without your generous assistance none of this could have happened. Thank you so much for helping to make the relief efforts so significant by giving and acting so quickly. It is making a big difference!

In summary, we are pleased to advise that the CW Asia Fund has managed to achieve the following objectives since May 8, 2008:

• Secured donations from International foundations and NGOs for Myanmar;
• safe shelters for child protection;
• Secured in kind donations of bulk pharmaceutical products, bulk vitamins, food supplements, dried soy powder, high energy bars, “Gastrolyte” and air freight. Arrowsmith School (Vancouver, B.C.) conducted fundraisers especially for the purchase of Gastrolyte product;
• Donor corporations included Jamieson Labs; Nature’s Path; Health Partners International of Canada; NBTY ; Novopharm; Rexall Drugs; UBC VGH Dentistry Dept, UBC Dental Association and West Coast Seed;
• Obtained donations from Air Canada and Cathay Pacific to transport the donated goods from Vancouver to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to Bangkok, respectively. Thai Air then delivered the goods from Bangkok to Yangon at a reduced cost;
• Received approval by Federal Department of External Affairs to provide financial assistance for Cyclone relief in Burma regardless of existing sanctions;
• Awarded $444,880 CAN of matching funds from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA);
• Set up a facility for donations in the UK under www.justgiving.com/burmarelief;
• Posted relief information on our website www.cwasiafund.org; and
• Launched online giving for American and Canadian donors with official tax receipting Give Meaning (100%, 0 deductions) for ongoing rebuilding of schools and healthcare facilities. Kindly forward to family and friends encouraging them to consider… One dollar feeds a family of five per day!

In the coming months the CW Asia Fund will continue their efforts in Myanmar.

Once again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Your generosity allowed timely, effective and appropriate humanitarian assistance to be delivered to the victims of Cyclone Nargis!

Sincerely,
Nina and John Cassils
Co-Founders
CW Asia Fund

Concierge.com‘s Insider Guide

Last Spring, while Myanmar’s government was refusing foreign aid for the survivors of Cyclone Nargis, local travel companies were among the first to provide relief. When little Ma Pandaw grows up, she can tell her pals she was born on a luxurious cruise ship. She first saw the light of day in its bar, which served as a temporary delivery room after the ship was converted into a mobile hospital to treat victims of the cyclone that swept through Myanmar s Irrawaddy Delta in May.

Ma Pandaw s mother, 17-year-old Khin Mar Oo, named her baby in honor of the ship in which she was born. The Pandaw IV was lent to the cyclone relief effort by Pandaw Cruises, one of dozens of tour companies, hotels, and resorts in Myanmar that responded to the Cyclone Nargis disaster by collecting donations and offering their staff, transportation, expertise, and, in this case, a replica of a nineteenth-century steamboat. We have collected $600,000, mostly from former passengers, said Pandaw Cruises founder Paul Strachan, adding that another $150,000 had been pledged.

Many tour companies have linked themselves to on-the-ground humanitarian relief groups such as Merlin, Save the Children, and the Red Cross. Donations are spent mostly on emergency supplies like cooking oil and pots, rice, salt, water, candles, soap, tools, tarpaulins, and clothing. Mistrustful of the military government-which blocked international aid agencies, including the UN, from entering the cyclone-ravaged delta for weeks following the disaster-former visitors turned to the tour companies they travelled with to ensure that their donations reach the needy. “We face far fewer restrictions on our movements than the relief agencies,” said Brett Melzer, owner of the luxury Malikha Lodge, in Myanmar’s far north, and Balloons over Bagan, a firm that specializes in hot-air balloon trips.

“We have the support of the authorities as long as we inform them of our movements and remain apolitical. There is already a sense of trust in place that enables us to move immediately without time-consuming internal meetings and detailed budgets. As tourism companies, we have experience in logistics and are able to handle and receive foreign funds. This allowed many in the industry to react quickly after the cyclone struck.”

Abercrombie & Kent, the large British tour operator, set up a Myanmar Relief Fund. Eight days after the cyclone, one of its relief teams reached the village of Ta Pyan Gyi, where they discovered 279 survivors in a church, the only building left standing. The relief packages-including blankets, mosquito nets, and rehydration salts-were the first aid the survivors received. By June 20, the fund had collected $340,000, including money for tractors and seeds, urgently needed in the rice-growing Irrawaddy Delta.

Yangon-based tour operator William Myatwunna and his staff at Good News Travels were among the volunteers. After we had fixed our own homes, we helped construct shelters for those in the neighborhood. Some of our staff cooked porridge for the survivors. A few tour companies had charitable foundations in place prior to the cyclone. Asia Transpacific Journeys, a Colorado travel agency, collects donations from clients and others to fund a water-filtration facility in Yangon. It reacted to the crisis by stepping up its distribution of clay water filters, which can be lifesavers during a natural disaster where clean running water is scarce.

Tourism to Myanmar has slowed to a trickle following the military regimes violent response in September 2007 to monks who were protesting inflation and living conditions. Even before then, visiting Myanmar (or Burma as it is widely known) had long been a contentious issue. Some Burmese dissidents and Western activists argue that tourist dollars only help to prop up the isolationist military regime. But proponents of tourism counter that foreign visitors not only help support the local economy but also keep the notoriously reclusive country open-and remind the Burmese people that the world has not forgotten their plight.

Tourism plays a vital role in allowing an exchange of information-something the government is desperate to stop, said a tour operator who works in Myanmar and who asked not to be identified. Without this degree of openness, the world would not have seen the Saffron Revolution take place last year. Tourists are one of the few things that the government cannot so easily control.

A Lower Mainland couple is doing their best to make sure Myanmar’s cyclone victims aren’t forgotten. Nina Cassils and her husband John – together with another couple from Calgary – have been raising funds for international organizations since Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar in May.

Through private and online donations at cwasiafund.org, Cassils has raised about $740,000 for on-the-ground relief efforts, and she’s gone there to lend a hand herself.
“Imagine a wave coming and continuing through to Surrey, ripping at every tree and building in between and killing women and children,” she said.

Knowing how far a Canadian dollar can go in Myanmar, Cassils set up CW Asia Fund to fund relief efforts through four organizations, including Doctors Without Borders. But as Western society’s memory of the disaster fade away, so do the funds. “It’s a shame because so much more needs to be done,” she said, who is involved with local and international charities. “People don’t even have to give that much. They don’t realize that a dollar can feed an entire family.”

Up to 300,000 people were killed by the cyclone, with another 2.4 million living with the aftermath. Damage has been estimated in the billions of dollars