Exciting Activities!

Since the last blog entry, two exciting things have happened which we have previously only mentioned in anticipation.  

The first is the start of our distribution of a number of essential ‘non-food’ items (NFIs) to each of 3,000 households. This distribution has been in the planning stages since our initial arrival and has been the source of frustration due to the immense challenges we have faced to see this materialize. These challenges have included issues around being able to secure the required items in the required quantities (3,000 of each!), the need to have the items shipped from Manila and Cebu, delays caused by closed ferry crossings due to bad weather, factory shutdowns because of the Chinese New Year festivities, etc., etc. It has been wonderful to see the items arrive in varying quantities, at the supplier’s warehouse in Tacloban. Although all required quantities have not yet arrived, we decided to start the distribution process in some of the localities since the entire process will take a week and a half to complete. In addition, we were running out of room in the warehouse!

Last Thursday the beneficiary ‘kits’ started to be assembled and this past Saturday we completed our first distribution in three of the barangays in the Municipality of Dulag – a total of 540 beneficiaries each received a small cast iron wood-burning cooking stove, a family sized sleeping mat and mosquito net, two nice towels, a set of dishes for a family of six, a wash basin, a cooking pot, a solar lantern, and a large jerry can for water – all neatly contained within a 60 litre bucket with lid! It was an exciting day for all of us. These items will be very useful to the beneficiaries. It was humbling to hear and see the expressions of thankfulness.

By the time you read this, we hope to have completed the distributions in the other two barangays in Dulag, and will be moving to Guiuan on Wednesday and Friday of this week, and then early next week we hope to complete the process in Tacloban. Thank you for your generosity in enabling World Renew to reach 3,000 families with these essential items!!

This past week we were also able to start a “cash-for-work” initiative. Cash-for-work initiatives focus on the injection of cash through emergency employment for households who have lost their livelihoods. These projects also restore existing personal and small-scale community assets and provide support to local markets. We have now started cash-for-work in nine communities and there are currently approximately 1,200 individuals engaged in this activity. Each person will work for 12 days. The work is carefully monitored by both community leaders and ourselves.  Upon verification of the time records, the people are paid at the completion of the assignment – no small task to prepare pay envelopes for that many people! After 12 days, another group will start work on other projects.

Community leaders have been actively engaged in identifying meaningful projects for their beneficiaries to work on. These include the establishment of community vegetable gardens, clearing rivers to prevent flooding, restorating day care facilities, clearing rice fields of fallen coconut trees, installing street lights (which will operate from the generators we provided), repairing  shelters for elderly and people with disabilities, etc.

This activity has been a great initiative to promote the re-building of communities while simultaneously providing some much need monies to individual families. Again, we can only say “thank you” to you as donors who make this all possible!

 

NOTE:  This is likely to be our last blog on this assignment. On February 24, as planned, I leave Tacloban to return to Canada and rejoin Annie! We miss each other immensely! The next two weeks will be very busy as we complete the distributions, continue the cash for work projects, and turn things over to our replacements – John and Hilda Van Gyssel.  Thank you for your encouragement and your prayer support during this assignment!