Support Children in Myanmar with UNICEF
Life has been increasingly difficult in many parts of Myanmar due to ongoing violent conflict, rising poverty, increasingly severe cyclones and other climate shocks. In March 2025, a devastating earthquake brought more suffering. UNICEF is on the ground in Myanmar, delivering emergency relief and reaching hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children and families with critical services and support despite security challenges. Learn more.
Why UNICEF works in Myanmar
Multiple humanitarian crises are endangering children in Myanmar.
The country's ongoing humanitarian crisis stems from years of civil war following a military coup in 2021. A devastating earthquake that struck central Myanmar on March 28, 2025, a region suffering from extreme heat and other effects of climate change, has only magnified the needs of already vulnerable children and families.
Over half the population of Myanmar, a country of 55 million people also known as Burma, lives in poverty. Health, education and other critical systems and infrastructure have been disrupted or destroyed as a result of the ongoing conflict between the Myanmar Armed Forces and various non-state armed groups across 13 of Myanmar’s 15 states — leaving millions of children vulnerable to trauma, malnutrition and grave rights violations. Hundreds of children have been killed by armed actors or injured by landmines and explosive remnants of war.
Natural disasters have added to the suffering. Before the March 2025 earthquake, UNICEF estimated that 30 percent of all children in the country required humanitarian assistance, and close to 2 million people were already internally displaced inside the country, struggling to meet basic needs. Half were living in camps that were then damaged when Cyclone Mocha made landfall in May 2023.
Severe flooding in the central region in 2024 led to a cholera outbreak and a surge in cases of acute watery diarrhea among children. The 2025 quake and its many aftershocks — the nation's deadliest seismic activity in decades — killed thousands and flattened entire communities, leaving others isolated and without power, food, water, shelter or basic health care.
Myanmar is also home to 417,000 stateless Rohingyas, an extremely vulnerable Muslim minority population. Roughly 940,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar — including close to 500,000 children — live in Cox’s Bazar District of Bangladesh, having fled genocide in 2017.
Related: How UNICEF is supporting Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh
Vulnerable children in Myanmar need health care, education
Due to these multiple and overlapping crises, millions of children in Myanmar have been missing out on their right to an education. An estimated 3.7 million children have limited or no access to learning. In many parts of Myanmar, schooling has ground to a halt.
Half of Myanmar's professional teachers were suspended, arrested or left the profession following the 2021 coup. Attacks on schools tripled in 2022. Many schools are still used as military bases by combatants, others lost to earthquake or flood damage.
More than 1.6 million children are not fully vaccinated against preventable diseases. The nation's measles immunization rate — once an impressive 91 percent — has fallen to 34 percent, dramatically increasing risks of an outbreak.
How UNICEF is helping children in Myanmar
The delivery of humanitarian assistance inside Myanmar has been constrained by restrictions on both the movement of supplies and the movements of the aid workers who are attempting to deliver it. Nevertheless, by working with community partners, UNICEF has been reaching and continues to reach children and families in need with a range of health, nutrition and other services and support.
Priorities for UNICEF's ongoing mission in Myanmar include:
helping to strengthen the delivery of primary health care services through fixed and mobile health clinics
training public health workers in immunization practices and vaccine management, providing cold chain equipment and working with national health officials to improve child immunization rates
improving access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene for displaced families living in temporary and long-term sites
reaching children suffering from severe acute malnutrition with ready-to-use therapeutic Food (RUTF)
helping to prevent malnutrition in children by providing micronutrients and vitamin A supplements and counseling on best infant and young child feeding practices
establishing fixed and mobile child-friendly spaces where children can receive mental health and psychosocial support, and where UNICEF team members can screen and identify of children in need of protection and other services
providing emergency interventions to adolescent survivors of sexual violence and life skills training
- supporting local child protection teams working at the village level
UNICEF is also a partner in emergency response when disaster strikes.
Delivering relief after a devastating earthquake
UNICEF's earthquake relief efforts alongside partners in Myanmar following the March 2025 quake included the swift delivery of safe water, sanitation and hygiene supplies, emergency medical kits and nutrition supplies from pre-positioned stocks and setting up mobile clinics to provide first aid and essential health care.
Emergency responders also worked to identify separated and unaccompanied children and support family tracing and reunification, while creating child-friendly safe spaces and otherwise mitigating health and protection risks. Girls are especially vulnerable when staying in overcrowded shelters without adequate privacy.
Related: Children Hit Hardest by Earthquake in Myanmar
In partnership with six local organizations, UNICEF also scaled up multi-purpose cash assistance to vulnerable households in the worst affected areas of Mandalay, Sagaing, Nay Pyi Taw and southern Shan, particularly families with children and persons with disabilities.
Prioritizing education for children
In education, UNICEF is able to help kids keep learning even when schools are closed by training community facilitators to be teachers, and distributing story books and other learning materials. UNICEF also helps upgrade libraries and other community facilities to create safe learning spaces.
Home-based learning is also supported. Hundreds of thousands of children have been reached with these interventions. And UNICEF works with local partners to provide early learning materials in more than 100 ethnic languages and cultures, providing tablets, laptops and digital literacy trainings.
UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to help children get educated, stay healthy, protected and respected, and responds to hundreds of emergencies every year. With your support, we can reach even more children whenever and wherever they need help.
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