LIFE Builds Five Clean-Water Projects Across Two Regions in Myanmar

Myanmar’s overlapping crises have turned something as basic as a glass of safe water into a daily calculation. Conflict, displacement, and extreme weather have strained already fragile public services, leaving families to rely on unsafe sources that rise and fall with the seasons. In parts of Rakhine State, where many displaced Rohingya families live in overcrowded conditions, the risk is not abstract: when clean water runs short, diarrheal disease and other waterborne illnesses spread fast. 

The pressure is especially sharp in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State as the hot season approaches. A multi-agency assessment of 18 displacement settlements found that a majority of people surveyed lacked enough drinking water, and even more lacked adequate sanitation, a combination that accelerates sickness and pushes families deeper into vulnerability. In Mandalay Region, earthquakes, floods, and economic shocks have compounded instability, contaminating water sources and forcing households to stretch unsafe supplies further than they can safely go. 

Life for Relief and Development completed a set of clean-water interventions in two locations, designed for immediate use and built for long-term reliability. In U Yin Thar Village, Sittwe, Rakhine State, four household-level hand-pump water wells were installed to serve identified vulnerable families (a combined total of 45 direct beneficiaries across the four reports), with indirect benefit extending to nearby households and passersby within the surrounding area.  

In PayarLay Kone, Tharzi Township, Mandalay, a deep-water well with a compressor and water tank was completed to serve approximately 430 families, prioritizing poor and marginalized households, including those with illness, disability, older heads of household, and pregnant or lactating mothers. Timeline note: the reports frame urgency around the hot season (March to May), with scarcity peaking in April and May, and warn that stored rainwater can run out by late January; the seasonal squeeze these projects were meant to relieve. 

For residents like Skukar Ali, a displaced father in U Yin Thar Village, the change meant everything. “The hand pump has greatly reduced our daily struggle to access clean water,” he said, describing how safe water closer to home helps protect his children’s health and restores a measure of steadiness to daily life. 

Local responders describe the same reality in practical, preventative terms, and with the blunt urgency of the calendar. “As the hot season approaches, intervention measures are needed to solve the problem of drinking water shortages and reduce the risks of water-borne disease,” said Tun Thaung, a project supervisor in Sittwe, underscoring how quickly seasonal scarcity can become a health emergency. 

These projects mattered because they did more than add infrastructure; they bought time, safety, and dignity where the margin is thin. Clean water supports handwashing, sanitation, and disease prevention, but it also protects childhood and routine: it keeps families from walking farther for unsafe sources, helps children stay healthier, and allows households to invest their hours in school, work, and recovery instead of survival logistics.

With community participation emphasized in site decisions and maintenance ownership, the lasting impact now depends on continued care, monitoring, and the shared commitment that made these wells possible. To every donor and every local partner involved: thank you for helping communities face the next hot season with something too many people still lack, a reliable source of safe water.