Community Resistance and Resilience in Chin State

How CHRO and local leaders are rebuilding dignity, resilience, and life-saving services where the state has failed

In regions torn apart by armed conflict, the collapse of public services often leaves communities without access to even the most basic forms of protection and care. Following the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, this became a harsh reality across Chin State. Government health systems and civilian protection mechanisms disintegrated, leaving a dangerous void in their wake.

Since 2022, the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) has stepped in to fill that void—partnering with Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) health workers and local leaders to build sustainable, community-led systems that provide critical health and protection services in some of the country’s most devastated areas.

This rights-based, community-first approach not only addresses urgent humanitarian needs, but also lays the groundwork for long-term self-reliance, social cohesion, and resilience.

Psychosocial Support in the Face of Adversity

The psychological toll of conflict is often invisible but immense. Addressing mental health is a cornerstone of CHRO’s protection work.

Since 2022, CHRO has deployed 12 Psychosocial Support Teams across Chin and Sagaing regions to raise awareness of mental well-being and equip people with the tools to manage trauma and stress. These mobile teams travel to remote, often displaced communities, providing group psychoeducation and counseling.

Key impacts since 2022:

  • 355 awareness and psychoeducation sessions conducted
  • 19,800 conflict-affected individuals reached
  • 140 clients provided with direct counseling and follow-up services

Through small group sessions, participants are encouraged to build peer support networks, strengthening community bonds and creating safe spaces for emotional recovery. These gatherings are vital in contexts where communities have been polarized by violence and distrust.

CHRO also operates a safe house for displaced individuals and refugee families, where newly uprooted people receive basic necessities and psychosocial support. Our mobile protection teams—trained in trauma-informed counseling and psychosocial first aid—offer emergency referrals and suicide prevention support, with successful interventions already documented.

This protection work is integrated with livelihood recovery and rehabilitation programs, offering a pathway beyond survival for victims of systemic oppression.

Rebuilding a Resilient Health System from the Ground Up

With Myanmar’s state health infrastructure in ruins across Chin State, CHRO has built a parallel system of community-based healthcare that is both adaptable and rooted in local leadership.

CHRO currently supports:

  • 21 community health service sites, offering primary care in hard-to-reach areas
  • 68 Village Health Committees, which act as frontline healthcare governance and community mobilization units

Impact highlights since 2022:

  • 86,925 patients served
  • 362 villages reached across Chin State
  • 2 hospitals renovated and upgraded in newly liberated areas

To address widespread medicine shortages and supply chain breakdowns, CHRO has developed a sustainable cross-border logistics network, ensuring continued flow of essential medicines and hospital supplies.

To support long-term sustainability, CHRO is also investing in human capital:

  • Training and deploying community health workers, lab technicians, and X-ray technicians
  • Delivering continuing medical education (CME) to frontline medical professionals across Chin

All of CHRO’s health services adhere to strict humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independence, ensuring that care is provided based solely on need, regardless of political affiliation, ethnicity, or religion.

A Rights-Based Model of Recovery and Resilience

This multi-pronged program—linking healthcare, protection, and community empowerment—is a response to both the immediate crisis and the structural failures that enabled it.

By equipping communities to lead, manage, and sustain their own essential services, CHRO is restoring dignity, rebuilding systems from the ground up, and protecting lives where the state has failed.

In a time of collapse, Chin communities are not just surviving—they are organizing, protecting, and laying the foundation for a more just and resilient future.

Health and Protection Program – The Humanitarian Division (6 August 2025)