Dreams Built on Vaccines
A Legacy of Health Passed from One Generation to the Next
- English
- မြန်မာ
20-month-old Khu Htee Reh clutches his immunisation card with quiet pride, standing beside his parents in Taunggyi, Shan State, Myanmar. It is a small card, but it carries the weight of everything this family has endured - a long journey from Kayah State to Shan State, escaping conflict, trying their best to keep their children safe every step of the way.
Lu Reh, 34, an assistant pastor, and his wife, Susana Tee Moe, 29, are raising four young children in Taunggyi alongside Lu Reh’s parents – Oo Reh, 67, and Naw Htay Myar, 59. Eight people, three generations, one household bound together by resilience, and an unshakeable belief in protecting their children.
Their peaceful life in a village on the eastern bank of Pekon, Kayah State, was shattered four years ago when heavy shelling began.
"When the heavy artillery started hitting the village, it was impossible to keep running with small children," Lu Reh recalls. For years, they moved from town to town, never staying long enough to feel safe. Earlier this year, they finally settled in Taunggyi, choosing the city specifically so their children could better access education and healthcare.
For this family, vaccines are viewed as more than just medicine - they are a "talisman of health" that protects their family. Oo Reh, the grandfather, looks at the old scar on his arm with a faint smile. "This little mark has protected me from disease my whole life," he says, likely referring to the smallpox vaccine he received as a child.
Naw Htay Myar, the grandmother, remembers a darker time from her youth when measles and severe diarrhoea claimed the lives of many children in her village. "My own son suffered terribly during a severe diarrhoea outbreak when he was little. It was so severe that some children didn't make it," she says. "But as health workers began providing education and vaccines, those diseases slowly vanished." Now, seeing her grandchildren receive modern pentavalent and polio vaccines, she sees the same shield of protection passing from one generation to the next.
For Susana Tee Moe, that protection came at a cost. Her son Khu Htee Reh, now 20 months old, was born in the middle of their displacement. His early months were spent not in the safety of a home, but on the move. Getting him vaccinated wasn't just a clinic visit. It was a decision she made again and again, under conditions most parents will never face.
"The hardest part was when we were at the clinics with 300 or 400 other people," the pastor explains. "If we heard the sound of a plane overhead, everything stopped. Everyone had to dive and lie flat on the ground. We were terrified of an air raid hitting the crowd, but we stayed. We took that risk because we didn't want our children to suffer from something like polio. We couldn't live with ourselves if we didn't protect their future."
Today, their youngest, 5-month-old Khu Phoe Reh, is receiving his full course of vaccines in the relative safety of Taunggyi, supported by UNICEF's routine and catch-up immunisation programmes, which continue to work with health authorities and partners to reach unreached children across Myanmar.
Lu Reh expressed his gratitude to all those involved in the efforts to deliver the vaccines. "My heart goes out to the children in even more remote and difficult areas. I pray that this 'shield of life' reaches every single one of them, without fail."
The family’s hope is simple yet profound. They dream of the day the conflict ends so they can return to their beloved home and rebuild. Until then, they find comfort in knowing their children are healthy and strong, each vaccine a small, hard-won step toward the dreams they refuse to give up on.
