They Didn't Choose This War

A people-to-people charity bringing food, water and medical aid to children who need it most, starting with Myanmar, and wherever children need us next. No overhead. No middlemen. Just people helping people, one bowl of rice and one surgery at a time.

"These children have lost everything, their homes, their schools, and for some, their parents. The least we can do is make sure they don't lose hope too."

Hello, Everyone.

First of all, I wish you all the very best, a life filled with peace, love, and the quiet joy of spending time with the people who matter most to you. I sincerely hope that wherever you are in the world, you are safe, and that the people you love are safe too. That simple wish, safety, togetherness, and peace is something most of us take for granted. In my country, it has become something people pray for every single day, and many never receive.

My name is Witty Chan. I am 30 years old, a Myanmar citizen, and I am writing this because I can no longer stay silent.
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"Who I Am, and Why I'm Here"

Myanmar has descended into one of the world's most devastating humanitarian crises, one that neither ASEAN, nor the broader international community, has been able to resolve. I left my country about two years ago, after the Myanmar Military announced its conscription law in early 2024, forcibly drafting men and women between the ages of 18 and 35 to fight and kill their own people. I left not because I stopped caring, but because staying would have meant being forced to become part of the very machine wagering war on its own people.

Even from abroad, I have done everything I can as a Myanmar citizen, sharing, speaking, raising awareness, donating what little I have. But the voice of one person never travels as far as it needs to. There are days I feel completely overwhelmed by grief, watching the news, seeing photos of children pulled from rubble, reading about families who walked for days through jungle with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a child's hand in theirs. There are days I want to give up.

But seeing the local volunteers, ordinary people, no different from me, who strap food onto motorbikes and drive into active conflict zones to reach families the world has forgotten. If they are still not giving up, neither can I.
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"What Is Happening to the Children"

Let me tell you what is happening to the children of Myanmar, because the world needs to hear the truth.

Families across Myanmar have been forced to flee their homes, not from one village, not from one region, but from across the entire country, because of relentless military airstrikes, the burning of houses and villages, and brutal, indiscriminate killings that still continue to this day in 2026. A mother has to decide in minutes what to carry and what to leave behind forever. A father has to hold his children's hands and run toward the jungle, not knowing if they will make it.

The military, the Tatmadaw has deliberately and repeatedly targeted civilians. Schools have been bombed while children were sitting in class. In May 2025, an airstrike on a school in Sagaing Region killed 22 students and their teachers. In September 2025, military jets bombed boarding schools at night while children were sleeping, killing 19 students. Hospitals have been shelled. Buddhist festivals and crowded markets have been attacked using paramotors, motorized paragliders rigged to drop bombs on civilians below. More than 135 such paramotor attacks have been recorded since late 2024 alone. In 2024, Myanmar recorded the highest number of attacks on schools and hospitals of any conflict in the world.

These are not accidents. These are not mistakes. This is a military deliberately destroying the future of an entire generation.

As of 2025, '6.9 million children' are in need of humanitarian assistance in Myanmar. More than '3.7 million people' have been displaced, driven from their homes, their villages, their entire lives. They now live in makeshift camps hidden deep in the jungle, with no running water, no electricity, no medicine, and never enough food. The children growing up in these camps have never known a classroom that wasn't eventually abandoned. Some have never known a home that didn't have to be left behind.

What makes this even more cruel is what happens when the world tries to help. The military does not only kill, it intentionally starves the people. It blocks aid routes to the very people it has already displaced. It jails and kills volunteers who try to deliver food and medicine, making brutal examples of them to frighten others into silence. For years, international humanitarian organizations have struggled to penetrate these barriers. The people in the jungle wait, and the aid that was meant for them never arrives.
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"The People Who Refuse to Give Up"

And yet, there are people who go anyway.

Local volunteers load trucks with rice and medicine and drive toward the sound of bombs. Doctors who walked away from government hospitals after the coup now perform emergency surgeries in jungle clinics with limited supplies, operating on airstrike victims by lamplight. Young people carry food on their backs through mountain paths to reach IDP camps that no vehicle can reach. They do this knowing what could happen to them. They do this because they believe these families, these kids deserve to survive.

Watching these people gives me the courage to keep going. They are the reason I still don't give up.
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"Why I Am Doing This"

I am 30 years old. I have no army, no political power, no platform with millions of followers. What I have is a voice, a conscience, and the absolute belief that these children who were born into this war through no fault of their own, deserve better than what they are getting.

I am raising funds for two verified, grassroots organizations working directly on the ground in Myanmar: 'Hope For Burma - HFB' and the 'O1 Medical Team in Karenni State'.

"Hope For Burma (HFB)"
(Active since 2022)
Hope For Burma is a grassroots volunteer organization working directly in conflict-affected areas of Myanmar. Since 2022, their teams have been doing two critical things: evacuating children and families from active bombing zones to safety, and providing clean food and water to displaced families in makeshift and IDP camps who have fled their homes. The photos in this campaign are from their actual field missions, children lining up with bowls, families receiving hot meals, volunteers in HFB aprons serving food in jungle camps. This is real, hands-on, dangerous work done by people who refuse to abandon their communities.

"O1 Medical Team - Karenni State"
(CDM Medical Team)
The O1 Medical Team was founded in 2021 by medical students and doctors who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement after the coup, walking away from their government jobs to serve the people instead. They operate a hospital in resistance-controlled Karenni State, one of the most heavily bombed regions of Myanmar. In 2024 alone, their team of six doctors, seven medical students, and 30 nurses performed 499 major surgeries, including 195 emergency surgeries, treating victims of airstrikes, malnutrition, and preventable disease. They operate in areas the military actively targets, and international aid cannot reach.

Every money raised goes directly to the On-Ground volunteer organizations. No overhead. No middlemen. Update photos and proofs shared every months after the donations reached.

I am not asking you to solve the war. I am asking you to help a child eat today. To help a mother get the medicine her baby needs. To help a doctor keep the lights on long enough to finish one more surgery.
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Please donate what you can and help me make sure these children do not lose hope.
I believe in people. I believe in humanity, in empathy, in love, and I believe that when we see suffering and choose to act, we become a little more worthy, and these acts will eventually lead back to the Peace for Humanity.

With all my heart,
Witty Chan
Myanmar Citizen - Bangkok, Thailand