KEY POINTS:
LABUTTA - Bloggers may find their messages blocked by Myanmar's military regime, but that hasn't stopped Nyi Lynn Seck from raising tens of thousands of dollars for cyclone survivors through his website.
The 29-year-old IT specialist and his friends are getting their hands dirty and putting the donations
to work by helping to build "Budget Huts" in the Irrawaddy delta, a region still reeling from the May 2-3 killer storm.
Days after Cyclone Nargis hit, Nyi Lynn Seck travelled from Yangon to the delta to document the survivors' stories. He posted their accounts and his photographs on his web journal.
"I have been blogging for quite a long time and many overseas Myanmar citizens read it. They wanted me to go to the delta and help out," he said.
Nyi Lynn Seck quit his job at a software solutions company to lead six volunteers, including four other bloggers, on a mission to aid villages around Labutta. They have been there since May 9. He is just one example of a grass-roots movement that has emerged in Myanmar. Many doing private relief work are highly critical of the Government effort that followed the storm.
Private efforts have filled a lot of gaps in the relief effort, especially in the early weeks, when the junta turned back most foreign relief workers. After pleas from the United Nations, the junta agreed to international aid, but it still limits foreigners' activities.
Nyi Lynn Seck said most of the US$30,000 received by the group came from Myanmar expatriates in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, but that money come from as far as Europe.
Myanmar's military Government, which strictly controls all media, blocks most blogging sites. However, they are sometimes accessible by using a server that masks the site's true origin.
Bloggers played a major role in ensuring the flow of information during anti-government protests in Myanmar last year and the violent crackdown that followed. At least one blogger, Nay Phone Latt, remains in prison.
Nyi Lynn Seck's blog has in the past included personal observations, advice for would-be bloggers and news items. It has not been seen as anti-government.
Nyi Lynn Seck said he became an aid worker because he felt the junta's response to the storm - which killed 78,000 people and left 56,000 more missing - was inefficient.
He has two models of wood-and-blue plastic shelters, dubbed "Budget Huts".
The group, which calls itself "Handy Myanmar Youths" because it wants to lend a hand to survivors, has put up 88 huts in delta villages.
Nyi Lynn Seck said the Government approved his group's project after they detailed their plans to authorities in Labutta and declared that no foreigners were directly involved. AP
Nyi Lynn Seck's Myanmar-language blog: http://nyilynnseck.blogspot.com
