Using a fast-track version of supporting community led crisis response (sclr), local volunteers managed to get microgrants to monasteries where tens of thousands of people took shelter before and after the cyclone hit. Most of the money was used to make sure that the monasteries had enough food for the influx of people for the first two days. This intervention took place in parts of Rakhine state where no other aid was available at the time. Volunteers and other civil society actors also played an instrumental role in alerting people in the exposed coastal areas to the imminent danger posed by Cyclone Mocha.

Hundreds of thousands were severely affected by Mocha (the UN Flash appeal puts the figure at 1.6 million), homes and crops and livelihoods lost or very badly damaged – leaving people in the area even more vulnerable. Cyclone Mocha crossed the coast between Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh and Kyaukpyu township in Myanmar at lunchtime on 14 May packing winds estimated at around 250 kmph. This made it one of the strongest cyclones on record in Myanmar.

The intervention described above was made possible by the fact, that the involved volunteers had prior experience with the “supporting community led crisis response” (sclr) along with a rapid grant from private philanthropy donor Legatum.