Build Rescue Boats in Flood Prone Communities

Thanks to your incredible support we’ve directly provided eight rescue boats since we launched this project on GlobalGiving. Your generosity has also helped to build a workshop that’s enabled many more boats to be built for other flood prone communities.

These boats have rescued hundreds of families over the years, but those families then need somewhere to shelter until the water recedes. So, once a boat has rescued people the next stop is their nearest evacuation centre.

However, not all residents have such a centre close to hand. That’s why for the last few months we’ve focused most of our effort in Manila on equipping the Banaba Livelihood and Evacuation Centre.

This Centre, which also holds the boat workshop you provided, was originally built by another NGO that ran out of funds during construction. We stepped in to help and after completing main construction we recently turned our attention to installing cubicles and fans in the building, as well as providing mats, pillows and blankets so that families have somewhere safe to sleep until they can return home.

During fair weather the building is home to community development projects, and so the cubicles have to be assembled and disassembled easily before and after disasters strike.

To enable this the cubicles have been formed by installing rails and curtains that can provide privacy during evacuations, before being removed again to restore the large open sections needed for community projects - like building more boats!

We’ve also provided bedding which can be quickly unpacked to give families somewhere comfortable to sleep. It also gets really humid in the Philippines during the rainy season, and with over forty families sleeping in the building fans have also been installed to keep the air moving.

Finally, although the Centre already had several bathrooms these won’t be enough to cope with the numbers of people using the building during an evacuation. So, we’ve also constructed more washing stations so that rescued families can stay clean and healthy.

All this work has filled our time in Manila for the last few months but we’ve also kept fundraising here on GlobalGiving to build our next rescue boat as well. We’re still about $1,000 (around £760) short to build that next boat, so if you are able to help further then we’d be incredibly grateful as always.

As always, if you ever have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email Andy@IDVolunteers.org. I would be delighted to hear from you.