I learned so much, and yet I know it's just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to disaster response, and was so encouraged, inspired, and blessed by the Samaritans Purse team and privileged to be a part of. Although health is my field I was working in, there's so much more.
- Health
- Shelter
- WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene)
- Agriculture and Food Security
- Protection
- Logistics/Human Resources/Finance
Some of our team members out for Sunday lunch. It just amazed me how the team would 'grab the bull by the horns' and get things done. The flexibility, adaptability, determination, and discernment in a crisis situation is truely a gift! Such hard workers!
Below is some wonderful women I got to work with: Brianna (Dr), Kathy (RN), Anne - my roomate (logistics), and myself.
Looking out from our home - Hotel Lorenza in Tacloban city.
Divine Word Hospital across the street from us.
Shelter Team
It was so neat to be able to go to our shelter teams base...a previous high school gym.
The shelter team would buy downed trees from people's yards, employ national staff to cut them (mostly by eyeballing - amazingly accurate 2x4's and 2x6's, etc), make shelter/housing kits, and give them away.
The day we stopped in on our way back from a mobile medical clinic one of the SP staff members was leaving so they were having a little farewell party.
Appreciation speech along with his testimony to his fellow workers - why we do what we do :)
Oriental hotel. What was before Yolanda a beautiful luxurious hotel, now was SP's warehouse/storage area. An agreement was made with the owner to use the space for SP's relief work and at the same time to clear up the debris and start to rebuild.
The shelter team also worked here...making the kits.
Hard to imagine 3 storey high waves (~ 30 feet), coming from this now calm ocean.
WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene)
Although I never got to see firsthand what the WASH team was doing...I know they were busy with biosand filters, teaching, and selling toilets/building latrines. The Philippines even had a 'National Toilet Day', how cool is that!
Agriculture and Food Security
The World Food Program (WFP) runs the food distribution and designates different NGO's to different areas. I don't remember the exact numbers, but the amount of trucks loaded each day and the amount of tons of rice distributed was crazy! Closer to the end of my time in the Philippines the WFP and NGO's were switching from relief to recovery phase of disaster response. The WFP was working to feed people yet to not harm the farmers/local economy who were now starting to do buisness again.
Amazing how this is coordinated!
Security/Logistics/Human Resources/Finance
Yet another branch of disaster response that's fundamental to the team. HR and finance working alot with obtaining different grants, statistics, hiring local staff, etc. Logistics - organizing basically everything, ordering supplies, keeping all the staff in order - fed, watered, sheltered, etc. And security - thankfully there was no security issues in the areas we were in. For some of our mobile clinics we had Police escort us as there were some rebel groups in some rural areas, but we had no issues.
Dengue
A few of our staff members, five out of our 30, got Dengue (viral hemorrhagic fever). Dengue is received from an infected mosquito. Thankfully I wasn't one of them!
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