In 2012, an ongoing ethno-religious conflict erupted in central Arakan State, affecting both groups of the local population - the Muslim Rohingya and the Buddhist Arakanese. This conflict has caused internal displacement of both communities, some of whom have been living in makeshift IDP camps for the past 8 years. The host communities to whose vicinity the displaced communities have moved have been equally affected and burdened by this influx of people. Moreover, the Muslim Rohingya are stateless and affected by segregation, limited access to livelihood opportunities and basic services. Given the length of the crisis, there are not only humanitarian needs, but also long-term development needs that will contribute to improving the quality of life for all communities.

This project, implemented by the Diakonia CCE Humanitarian and Development Cooperation Centre (DCHC-HDC) and the Lutheran World Federation Myanmar (LWF Myanmar), will serve as a "scale up" of existing interventions in previous years, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. This project aims to address the urgent needs of IDP and host communities through the "hard" project components - building WASH and community infrastructure - and to a limited extent the "soft" component through community empowerment. The activities of this project are complementary to the planned activities in the areas of education, livelihoods and social cohesion under the 2020 Humanitarian Grant and in full compliance with the policies of UNHCR, on whose behalf the local project partner acts as "IDP camp manager". The technological and professional component of the Czech footprint consists in the implementation of a water treatment solution for selected public schools with a possible multiplication of the intervention in the next years of the project implementation (cooperation with G-servis).