Rai (Odette) devastated many areas also in the Visayas. We have mounted a response by focusing on the distribution of food packs and hygiene supplies for hard to reach villages in Maasin, Southern Leyte. Our experience with past calamities is that the focus of support usually happen in accessible areas or in areas very visible in the news (like Siargao and Dinagat). We will target 1,500 beneficiaries in this response focusing on food, hygiene supplies and later on providing small livelihoods.
Super Typhoon Rai slammed vast areas in the Visayas and Mindanao wrecking havoc to lives and livelihoods to thousands of victims. While aid is coming, most of these is focused on passable areas but hard to reach areas are last in the list. We will focus our support to these hard to reach villages in Maasin, Southern Leyte by fielding local volunteers and in so doing, distribute the help. We will focus on the most immediate needs of the families namely food packs and hygiene kits.
Food and hygiene supplies is urgently needed immediately after a disaster, most especially in this type of calamity whose impact and reach is so widespread. We are locally situated with a sub-base in Palo, Leyte and thus can mobilize our resources more efficiently and with little operational cost. After our initial support, we shall continue on with long-term recovery after thorough assessment few weeks after our initial effort.
The stability of the health and well-being of local communities is most urgent after a disaster and the need to focus resources to the hard to reach communities by reason of their remoteness is often bypassed. Our effort will be towards this direction and we shall continue on as the days come and we assess more clearly the situation.
