IOM is appealing for USD 12.5 million to meet the shelter needs of
50,000 families in Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Delta, almost two years
after Cyclone Nargis devastated the area.

"There are still as many as 100,000 families without the basic
shelter they need to get through the wet season, but unless we get
new funding by May 2010, we will be forced to close our three
offices in the Delta and end our shelter programme," says IOM
Myanmar Chief of Mission Mariko Tomiyama. 

Cyclone Nargis swept through Myanmar on 2-3 of May 2008, leaving
nearly 140,000 people dead and 2.4 million homeless.

According to the Tripartite Core Group of the UN, ASEAN and the
Government of Myanmar, which has coordinated the post-Nargis
emergency response and reconstruction effort, as of mid-January,
there were still over half a million Nargis-affected people without
adequate shelter.

Over the past 20 months, IOM has been actively engaged in
emergency and early recovery efforts in the Delta, assisting over
400,000 people in the areas of shelter, health and psychosocial
programmes. 

IOM's shelter programme has helped over 58,000 households
through a community-oriented approach. In addition to full and
partial shelter assistance packages, this provides household level
livelihood assistance, through the provision of home gardening
kits, cash for work schemes, carpentry training, and community
livelihood lending centres.

For more information, please contact:

Nelson Bosch

IOM Yangon

Tel. +95.1252560

E-mail: "mailto:nbosch@iom.int">nbosch@iom.int