Food packets being readied by SOS mothers for typhoon…
In June 2008, SOS Children's Villages in the Philippines distributed food to typhoon victims in Iloilo. Here is a report from that time, showing that not only emergency services are involved in helping people in times of disaster, the whole SOS Villages comes together to help those in trouble:
- Lisa
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Food packets being readied by SOS mothers for typhoon victims in Iloilo, Philippines
In June 2008, SOS Children's Villages in the Philippines distributed food to typhoon victims in Iloilo. Here is a report from that time, showing that not only emergency services are involved in helping people in times of disaster, the whole SOS Villages comes together to help those in trouble:
SOS Children's Village Iloilo is not affected by Typhoon Fengshen and is taking immediate action in helping typhoon victims with shelter and nourishment.
SOS Children's Village Iloilo is providing rice, canned food-items and noodles to the 300 families in the vicinity whose houses are still under water after the typhoon Fengshen lashed the Philippines. The affected areas are still not accessible and co-workers are trying hard to reach them. The water-level in many areas are still remaining at waist-high.
About 70 families have taken shelter at the SOS Social Centre Iloilo where they are provided with the food and essential items. These families come from the communities around the SOS Children's Village Iloilo where family strengthening programmes are being implemented.
One of those rescued is a 27-day-old baby who was cheerfully received and is being cared for by the children in the village.
Electricity and telephone services are still not restored in many parts of Iloilo city. Generators are pressed into service to provide power in the SOS Children's Village Iloilo.
According to the Red Cross, Iloilo is worst-hit by the fury of the typhoon and hundreds of thousands of people had to be evacuated.
Typhoon Fengshen caused devastation across much of the central Philippines. About 160 people died in flooding and landslides, while homes, bridges and roads were washed away. The typhoon has now weakened to a tropical storm and is heading north into the South China Sea.
- Mary
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The flooded houses in Beni, Bolivia
Here is another situation, this time in Bolivia, where help was at hand with the delivering of emergency parcels for victims of flooding in Bolivia.
Enrique Aguirre, national vice-director of SOS Children's Village Bolivia visited the flood-hit areas in Beni and, in his report, he talks about the situation of the victims and actions taken by the organization in order to support the children and families in need:
To begin with, we have to mention that the organization, SOS Children's Villages, does have a special programme worldwide to give support on disasters: our so called SOS Emergency Relief Programs.
This type of programme has first been implemented in Bolivia in 1998, when a natural disaster, an earthquake in Totora and Aiquile in the valleys, killed many people and left many others in need. Since then, the organization has been present in several other disasters in the country a big fire in the town of San Julian, Santa Cruz, a huge collapse of a hill in Chima, La Paz and, in Trinidad, Beni, in 1992, a similar flooding We can say that we have an important experience in the support of affected people in issues of disaster.
The strategy: In general, we take two actions. The first is an immediate one by which we determine if there are children who have remained without families, in orphanage, [in such a case,] we bring them to the surrogate family programmes of SOS Children's Villages They find a temporary family there.
The second action [ ] is to look for the camps and shelters where we can build emergency relief tents in order to assist the children under six years of age in the meantime their parents have the chance to look for alternatives in the reconstruction of their homes. This second action provides children with protection at temporary day-care centres with a daytime support of eight hours, with specialized personnel. We give health service, initial education, and food.
Actions taken in Beni: In the case of Beni, no children have been declared in orphanages. So, we proceeded to build tents in the existing camp sites in order to support the victims. We also launched a campaign to collect "emergency parcels" in the country.
A parcel consists of provisions and food that weigh approximately 17 kilograms, with an estimated cost of 160 Bolivian pesos (USD 20) each. It has been planned as a 15 to 20 days provision, and victims find in it lamps, oil, rice, noodles, beans, cans of tuna, soap, toilet paper, etc.
Organizing the families in shelters: The families have been sheltered in three different spaces: a few children/families moved to live with their relatives. Nevertheless, the majority, approximately 2,500 families, found a shelter in some of the public schools of the city of Trinidad. A third group of people built tents along the main motorways. We have prioritized these families because we believe they are totally unprotected and are living in a very poor condition. What is very important, though, is that theses shelters are planned to move to a place with basic services like drinkable water, tap water, sanitary services, day-care centres, etc., where the organization will be able to assist over 300 children.
For the time being, SOS Children's Villages will continue to be there for at least three, four months. Based on our experience, we know that people start leaving the shelters little by little. We hope this happens within three or four months.
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