Safe Space, Strong Voices: How a Women and Girls Centre Transforms Earthquake-Affected Communities in Myanmar

When the earthquake hit Myanmar on 28 March, Tin Zar Linn remembers only flashes—the sound of people screaming, and then the sudden darkness as she collapsed. She was injured, frightened, and unsure what would come next in the community she grew up in.

A few months later, people in the community now call her “Sayarma-lay”—“young teacher” in Myanmar language. At the Women and Girls Centre in Mandalay, the Centre staff, including young volunteers, meet women and girls, and sit together for safe conversation. The Centre, supported by UNFPA and funded by the UK Government through Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), has become a lifeline in the long and uneven recovery from the earthquake.

“I love helping people whenever and wherever I can,” she says. Before the quake, she volunteered with AFXB’s floating clinic, helping communities and families along the Irrawaddy river. “Like others in my community, I was heavily affected by the earthquake—both physically and mentally. Later, I had the opportunity to help the affected community again through the Women and Girls Centre in Mandalay.”

When Regional Humanitarian Advisor for UNFPA’s Asia-Pacific office, Tomoko Kurokawa, visited Mandalay, she met the affected women who shared their experiences of the center.

“They told me how essential the Centre was for them during the earthquake response,” Tomoko recalls. “They said that this Centre is the only safe and private place in the area where they can go to receive information about their sexual and reproductive health, to talk openly and safely about gender-based violence, and to receive psychosocial support.”

In the crowded displacement sites that sprang up after the disaster, privacy is scarce. Families share makeshift tents; women and girls struggle to manage their periods, find safe latrines, or seek help if they experience violence. The Women and Girls Centre offers something unique: a safe space for women. 

Tomoko describes how, over time, the Centre evolved into much more than a service delivery point. “Many said that the Centre has helped them rebuild a sense of community, and what they learned there is now knowledge that they pass on to their children, especially adolescent girls. It has become very clear that the Centre has become a place of healing and strength.”

For Nu Nu Lwin, the Centre Officer who oversees day-to-day activities, what makes the space unique is the way services are offered.

“The Centre is not just the place to distribute relief items – it offers services at a safe space where women and girls can participate openly. There was no such place here before, and as the more the community sees its value, the more of their trust and love in the centre keeps it alive.”

Sessions at the Centre cover practical topics—what constitutes gender-based violence, how to seek help, where to access services, and how to support a friend experiencing violence. For many women and adolescent girls, it is the first time anyone has told them they have a right to safety, to bodily autonomy, and to seek support without harm.

The Centre also offers sexual and reproductive health information tailored to adolescents and young people. “Every young person has the right to access sexual and reproductive health information even in the hardest situation,” says Tin Zar. “With this information, young people are being empowered and able to control their bodies and well-being. It helps prevent unintended pregnancy, unsafe abortion and sexually transmitted infections.”

This information is particularly critical in earthquake-affected communities, where health facilities were damaged, transport was disrupted, and fear kept many away from care.

The Women and Girls Centre is also a space for psychosocial recovery. Many women arrive carrying invisible burdens: sleeplessness, constant worry, grief for family members lost, and the stress of having fled with almost nothing.

“Women and girls who come here enjoy the psychosocial support activities at the Centre such as awareness sessions and mental health counselling,” Tin Zar says. “They forget all the worries and stresses for a period of time while at the center.” She smiles as she describes the atmosphere. “Beauty or book? You name it, they have both. They can wear Thanakha (i.e traditional yellowish-white cosmetic paste made from ground bark that many women and girls in Myanmar apply to their cheeks) or do nail-colouring. They can read books at the small library at the center. The Centre is not just for their learning but for their mental well-being and recovery as well.”

These seemingly simple activities—wearing Thanakha, reading books, joining a group discussion—create moments of normalcy and dignity amid disruption. For a woman who has lost her home or livelihood, being able to choose a nail colour or a book can be a gentle first step back into feeling like herself again.

Beyond information and counselling, the Centre also offers vocational training such as making local food & snacks, and plans to include more training for women in the future, like sewing clothes, that support livelihoods and strengthen women’s leadership in the community.

The Centre also distributes dignity kits to affected women and girls of reproductive age. Each kit contains basic hygiene items such as sanitary pads, allowing them to manage their period with privacy and dignity. 

“Through the Centre’s activities, we have initiated building a physically and mentally healthy environment, but also encouraging women’s empowerment and gender equality in our community,” Nu Nu Lwin says.

For Tomoko, one of the strongest impressions from her visit to Mandalay was the commitment of local partners, who keep services running in extremely challenging conditions.

“Across these visits, what really stood out was the continued commitment and dedication of our national partners,” she says. “They are the ones running the Women and Girls Centres, the women and girls safe spaces, the floating clinic, the mobile clinics—ensuring provision of essential services to affected communities under extremely challenging conditions, and mounting pressures like funding cuts.”

Through FCDO’s support, UNFPA and its partners have expanded life-saving services for women and girls across earthquake-affected areas, including maternal health care, gender-based violence prevention and response, and mental health and psychosocial support. For the earthquake response alone, UNFPA and partners have reached more than 122,000 individuals across 39 townships in six states and regions, including over 2,000 persons with disabilities.

British Embassy Yangon spokesperson said, “The UK is proud to support women like Ma Tin Zar Linn and support the vital Women and Girls Centre, which is an important lifeline for women affected by the devastating earthquake. The UK remains committed to putting women and girls at the heart of its foreign and development policy, working to ensure that women and girls around the world can thrive and flourish.” 

In one of the displacement camps Tomoko visited, families were still living in crowded, makeshift tents over seven months after the earthquake, with little privacy or protection from the rain. Women told her they had fled with only the clothes on their backs. They remembered every item in the dignity kits they received—from menstrual products to soap—because each item allowed them to preserve a sense of dignity in impossible conditions.

“For many, the support was a lifeline,” Tomoko says. “Despite everything that they’ve been through, what really stood out to me was their resilience and their determination.”

That same determination is visible at the Women and Girls Center in Mandalay—among the women who now share what they’ve learned at the Centre with their daughters at home, the adolescent girls who ask questions on their menstrual hygiene openly, and the youth outreach volunteer everyone calls “Sayarma-lay”, who turned her own experience of fear into a commitment to serve others.

Thanks to FCDO’s funding and the tireless efforts of partners and dedicated frontline staff and volunteers, the UNFPA’s earthquake response interventions, including the Women and Girls Centres are really making a change for the affected women and girls —turning a place of crisis into a place of healing, strength and hope for the women and girls who need it most.

*This story was originally published on the UNFPA Myanmar website.