Ondoy Relief Operations Report: Phase 1
Posted by:
in the category
03 November 2009
Tuesday
Dear Friends,
On behalf of all of us who make up Pathways – staff, students, parent-participants and volunteers, we would like to thank all of you for quickly responding to our call for initial relief goods for the Pathways participants affected by Typhoon Ondoy (International name: Ketsana) last September 26.
Text has always been the fastest and most effective way to reach our participants. So the week immediately after Ondoy, with the help of our college student volunteers, we were able to conduct a text brigade to find out how each participant was. From there, we received a number of replies, but did not get to account for all them yet. It took about a week and a half to locate most of them – most did not have signal in their areas, nor did they have electricity where they could charge their phones, and for some, their phones were damaged or lost in the flood. Once we were able to get feedback, here is what we found:
73% or a total of 303 families from our existing 417 participants were directly affected by Ondoy. 167 of whom were severely affected (i.e. the whole house was flooded and currently living in evacuation centers the entire house was washed away by the current, family member seriously ill as a result of the typhoon, etc). Five of our seven-man team in Pathways were also badly affected. All 10 partner public high schools in Marikina were affected along with most of our partner principals and teacher coordinators. Even our partners in different QC high schools were also affected. Indeed, this was one typhoon where all of us were affected.
The good news is that from your generous and timely donations of food, clothes, beddings and toiletries, we were able to put together a total of 721 “relief packs”. Each pack contained the following – bottled water, rice, canned goods, noodles, biscuits, toiletries, laundry detergent, clothes and for some, beddings and “banig”.
A total of 470 packs were given to our Pathways participants most in need of them. For the ones who were severely affected, we gave them at least two relief packs to equip them with more provisions for their entire family to last at least a week or more after Ondoy. (Contents of packs may vary a little depending on what was available at the time of packing.)
Click for more pictures of the relief operations
We provided a total of 25 relief packs to our own staff as well as some of the Ateneo staff and guards whom we knew were also affected.
We were also to help other public school students, faculty and administrators in the Marikina high schools most severely affected by Ondoy. We distributed a total of 226 relief packs to – Santa Elena HS, Concepcion Integrated HS, Nangka HS, Marikina HS, Marikina Science HS and Tañong HS.
We also received various medicine donations which we bundled into first-aid packs containing medicine for the following: headache/fever, diarrhea, coughs, colds. Some packs also contained vitamin C and alcohol. (Contents of packs may vary due to the available medicines at the time). Due to the limited supply, we distributed the packs to the participants with sick family members and the rest were donated to the clinics of the public schools.
We really wanted to give our participants more than just one relief pack each, however, to our astonishment and admiration, they asked us to share it with other families they knew were also in need. At the time of their own greatest need, they were able to think of others and share with others too. Witnessing them want to share the little relief packs we were able to prepare with their neighbors and other people who were as badly affected makes us truly proud of the generosity of the Filipino.
To date, we have been able to conduct two phases of relief operations. The first was to mobilize for and distribute relief packs to our participants. Through your generosity and proactive-ness, we were able to distribute 721 much needed relief packs to Pathways families and partners who needed them most. Thank you all so much for the generous help you gave, together, we have been able to reach out to over 500 families to help them in their greatest hour of need.
After this, our next step was Crisis Intervention. It was our aim to help reduce the likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorders developing among our participants.
Plase click for report on debriefing sessions
