Ms. Myat Moe Thwe’s journey in the disaster management field is one of turning personal experience into passion and desire for advancement. As Director for Coordination and Research Division in Myanmar’s Department of Disaster Management, Ms. Moe is responsible for international cooperation and coordination on disaster preparedness, relief, response and recovery for the nation. Her busy schedule sees her coordinating between local and international disaster management organisations on the development and implementation of policy and guidelines, undertaking disaster risk management research, and also being Myanmar’s go-to person for the nation’s ever-expanding engagement in the regional One ASEAN One Response movement.

It was, however, a more personal reason that ignited Ms. Moe’s passion for all things disaster related. Experiencing the full brunt of Cyclone Nargis when it stormed through Myanmar in 2008 not only affected Ms. Moe directly, but also voluntarily participated in the emergency relief and response operations and family reintegration programmes that took place in the days, weeks and months following the significant disaster. “The needs were so immense and broad at the time” Ms. Moe recalls, “but resources were very limited. There were very few organisations who could support early disaster relief, and even many of the responders ourselves were also victims of the disaster”. While providing whatever form of physical and emotional support she could, the engagement of numerous international disaster management organisations in the time following the disaster saw Ms. Moe involved in training and capacity building ‘on-the-ground’, that allowed her to learn more about what she had just been involved in, and learn lessons about disaster management on a daily basis.

“Experience is the best teacher – and learning from experience is the most important tool for individual development” says Ms. Moe.

“There were mistakes that I made during that very first experience due to the lack of knowledge and skill in dealing with disaster. However, this in turn drove my passion to learn more about disasters, and further pursue skills in disaster management.”

When taking about the present – and the future – for disaster management in Myanmar and the ASEAN region, Ms. Moe is quick to highlight the importance of technology to support improved preparedness and response for the communities. She identifies the important role of technology, and how it can support increases in human capacity for disaster management practices. “We have ideas and experience related to disaster management, but they need to be combined with technology for increased outreach and speed”, explains Ms. Moe. “By doing so, our valuable ideas can be transformed into technical tools for effective management” she continues. With this idea in the forefront of her mind, Ms. Moe led the development of a mobile application called Disaster Alert Notification. Ms. Moe explains that it is a simple yet useful example of utilising technology for communicating and disseminating information on disaster, allowing for an integrated and common platform through which people can obtain information easily and communicate in the face of disaster.

All innovation and technology aside, it is Ms. Moe’s humanitarian values and empathy that clearly form the base of all that she does. She states that “disaster teaches us to be more humane, humble, tolerant and resilient, and these are the kind of values that are so important even outside times of disaster”. Ms. Moe believes that these humanitarian ideals should be nurtured, and the collective strength that overcoming disaster requires should be continuously developed. She is also a strong believer in preparedness, saying that “disaster preparedness should be part of people’s everyday life, with education and awareness raising directing us to do the right things in the wake of disaster”. It is these values that Ms. Moe instils in herself throughout all facets of her work and life – reminding us that for disaster managers, work and life are often one and the same. “I seek to make my working environment feel like home, which means developing friendly relationships with my colleagues, and thinking of them as my family” she says. Ms. Moe emphasises the importance of mutual sharing and caring, and finished by reminding us all that “some external factors are out of our control, so we must accept this reality and make life more enjoyable for ourselves and others”.

Written by : William Shea | Photo : Personal collection of Myat Moe Thwe

The diversity of the ASEAN region is reflected through the pool of talents within the ASEAN Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ERAT). The range of expertise and skills combined also showcases the inclusivity of ASEAN humanitarians – who meaningfully enrich perspectives of decision makers while engaged in emergency response. For this Volume of The Column, one of the ASEAN-ERAT Information Management specialists from Malaysia shares his story with us in between his packed schedule.

Now sitting as the Senior Assistant Director in the Technical and Infrastructure Department of Malaysia’s National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA), Mr Adiratna Wira Adnan has found himself on a career pathway that was somewhat unexpected. A background in engineering, and numerous strategic roles in public works and infrastructure development had Mr Adiratna working across some of Malaysia’s largest road and development projects, coordinating teams and collaborating with experts while contributing to Malaysia’s rapidly expanding infrastructure sector.

Adi – as he likes to be called – recalls being seconded to NADMA three years ago, and he was immediately interested in the work due to a range of other disaster relief experiences he encountered during his time in the private sector. “It’s not what I had originally envisaged”, Adi tells us, “but perhaps it is my pre-determined fate, and I am truly glad to be working here”. Adi also recognises the value brought by an engineering mind with disaster management, highlighting the relationship between risk-awareness in engineering that is also central disaster risk reduction (DRR) practices. “Trained as engineer, it helps me promote the safety-first awareness, analysing it qualitatively and later taking necessary action to avoid, mitigate or reduce the risk – particularly in safety and security aspects of DRR-related tasks”, Adi says.

As a member of the ASEAN-ERAT, Adi is one of the few members that have been deployed three times in less than one year, with the region calling upon his expertise during 2018’s Typhoon Mangkhut and Central Sulawesi emergency responses, as well as the preliminary needs assessment mission in Rakhine in early 2019. Adi highlights the varying natures of each deployment – the different contexts, aims and experiences all unique in their own way. Adi’s first response to Typhoon Mangkhut saw him taking part as a Team Leader of a small team gathering information that was complex and time-sensitive, while in contrast, the Central Sulawesi response was a large deployment in numbers and scope of work, collaborating with partners from both local and international parties. “It put all the existing related procedures and policies – not only ERAT but national and regional – to the test”, he remembers.

More recently, the preliminary needs assessment for repatriation readiness in Rakhine was a slow-on-set mission, seeing the more intense tasks taking place at the end of the 10-day deployment. Adi tells us that this was the “first extensive humanitarian assessment by ERAT, covering different and diverse aspects of assessment outside of the usual ERAT scope. It reflected the importance of safety and security aspects during deployment, that were perhaps often secondary during other previous response deployments”.

Adi’s tips for other ASEAN-ERAT members are highly relevant to his array of experiences during deployment. Primarily, Adi says “it is of the utmost importance to be well-prepared for deployment, physically and mentally. Personal preparedness should also include gathering relevant information, as well as useful tools for use when deployed. These efforts will help remove any self-doubt, and elevate your motivation, as you will perform strongly with the right tools at hand”. Adi has also facilitated workshops and trainings as part of the ASEAN-ERAT courses, as well as other related courses at universities and schools.

He enjoys such engagement, and recognises the value that learning from each other’s experiences can hold. “I consider myself facilitating a knowledge sharing session, of which I believe each person has something valuable to share that everybody can benefit from. Thus, the enthusiasm and energy within the class or the session always inspires me to do more.”

Finally, Adi also highlights the importance of work-life balance, even if your role is committing to serve your nation at all times. He tries to keep his work and family life separate, and undertake any extra tasks late at night as not to affect quality time with his loved ones. However, he also highlights that his fellow responders are his second family, and is always ready to give 100% commitment during responses. It is this mix of work and home life that provides Adi with his happiness, and he states that “I pursue happiness and challenges in work. I believe we will be happy if we give something to others and when we acquire something for ourselves. In this field, the opportunity to give – a new idea, a new way to do things, new technological advances improving regular relief efforts – this is as endless as disaster and its risk management itself, it is as broad as the seas”.

Written by: Shintya Kurniawan, William Shea | Photo : AHA Centre