“You put on a professional persona, you know that if you're going to be shocked and unable to function that it's not going to work. It's later when you get back that the compartments start leaking.” Tim Costello, The Age, May 19, 2008

When World Vision's Tim Costello returned from Myanmar last year, he told the media there were occasions when he found himself in tears without warning. 'Blubbering' was the term he used. Despite countless trips to developing nations, little could have prepared him in witnessing the tragic aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.

After the cyclonic wind had destroyed homes in the Ayeyarwady Delta, a four-metre-high tidal wave washed the sea upriver, drowning villages, submerging islands, sweeping away people, animals, rice fields, banana palms and bamboo plantations. For the children who witnessed this, returning to some normality was an important part of their recovery.

When World Vision first met Nway*, she was just 9 years old and having to come to terms with the knowledge that every member of her immediate family had been killed by the cyclone.

When the cyclone struck, Nway was staying with her favourite aunt. The two of them spent the night crammed into one house with 100 other people, all of them standing up, listening to the weather rage outside.

After hours of lashing rain and 240km winds, the sun rose to reveal flattened rice crops, flooded roadways, houses reduced to rubble and an unprecedented death toll.

In Nway's village, 120 people out of a population of 430 lost their lives.

Immediately after the cyclone struck, World Vision supported Nway and thousands of other cyclone survivors with emergency survival packs containing food, water and clothing. World Vision also looked after the mental wellbeing of disaster-affected children around the Delta, setting up Child Friendly Spaces. One year later, there are now 108 Child Friendly Spaces being used by 17,000 children. These spaces are safe areas where children play and work through their grief.

The spaces have also been used to reunite missing children with their parents, or protect those orphaned by the disaster until family members could be located.

12-year-old Linm spent time in a Child Friendly Space until he was reunited with his father and one of his brothers. Linm was caught in the tidal surge and it took him 50 kilometres from his home. Only recently has he started speaking about his experience - he remembers grabbing a piece of wood that floated past. "I held on very tightly and woke up in a cemetery," he says.

When he was found, Linm didn't know who he was or where he'd come from. It took three weeks before he was reunited with his father and brother - he learned then that his mother and three other siblings had died.

World Vision, UNICEF and other partners have worked together to reunite approximately 1,776 children registered as separated from their families. A total of 196 children have been reunited with relatives; other children are being cared for within their communities.

With the emergency phase over, Child Friendly Spaces have become early childhood centres and places where families can receive non-formal education.

“Parents worry about the safety of their children. A Child Friendly Space provides a safe place where play therapy addresses their psycho-social needs. We encourage them to talk and make new friends,” says child protection advisor, Richard Mukhwana.

Ensuring children have educational opportunities is a key element of Myanmar's recovery. World Vision is helping by building new schools, distributing school uniforms and resources.

Nway is now 10 and life is slowly returning to normal. She has received school supplies and a new uniform. Her resilience seems astonishing when she talks about how determined she is to do well at school. "I want to be a doctor," she says.

*Names have been changed