Getting Off to a Shaky Start
For the people of northern Cebu and nearby areas, the night of September 30 rocked their world. A 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit Bogo City in Cebu. The quake claimed more than 70 lives and caused more than 3 billion pesos in damage to infrastructure.
Because of the quake, the NVC disaster and emergency relief team hit the ground running in October. When Field Officers Alyne and Jr clocked in at work on October 1, they had no idea what the rest of the day (or the rest of the week) would hold. Early that morning, NVC President Millie Kilayko and Executive Director Inah Uytiepo began coordinating with possible ground partners in Cebu. A little after 10AM, everything was set with our ground partners, our pickup truck was loaded, and Ronron our on-call driver arrived so the lean team of three set off! Alyne and Jr did not even have a change of clothes, but someone stepped in and gave them money to buy what they needed.
The team first traveled by land from the western part of Negros Island to the eastern side. They then crossed the Tañon Straight from Negros Island to Cebu Island by ferry. Upon landing, they drove north in search of a place with a generator (to charge their phones so they could stay in touch with the team at home base) to stay for the night. Before the crack of dawn the following day, the team was up and on their way to communities identified by our ground partners.
Children Come First
When NVC responds to a disaster or emergency, we always bring Mingo Meals and stuffed toys of the children. Our bodies have higher nutritional requirements when we are under stress so the nutrients in Mingo can help the children who have to cope with stressful situations. The stuffed toys are to help the children emotionally. Studies show that hugging a plush object such as a teddy bear can help a child feel calm. We make sure to fill children’s tummies and hearts. During our operations, we met with children suffering from the effects of stress and trauma including a young girl named Sofia whose fever had not completely subsided despite taking medication. A couple of days after she received her giant stuffed monkey, her family reported that she was feeling much better.
We prioritize the needs of children, but we understand the needs of adults, too and they also enjoy the Mingo we prepare for them. NVC also provides relief goods for the whole family, and we have a rather unique way of giving out relief goods.
Signature Style
For the past 5 years, NVC Foundation has been distributing relief goods in a unique way. Instead of packing relief bags and distributing those, we set up “shop” on location. We lay out essentials such as rice, canned sardines, soap, alcohol and detergent as if they are in a shop. Then a designated member of each family is given the chance to “shop” for the family’s needs. This way, the families can get what they need, nothing is wasted. For instance, some families may not need diapers while others might. What’s more, families are given the dignity of choice, choosing which brands they want or even colors (when it comes to towels).
In our experience, participants have always been behaved and never rowdy. Plus, families share that this experience makes them feel special.
To cut down on our carbon footprint and to support local enterprises, we purchased our relief goods from stores and warehouses in Northern Cebu. These nearby establishments delivered the goods to the sites we served.
Birthday Celebrations
Some of the children we served (and even our Field Officer Alyne) celebrated their birthdays while our relief operations were ongoing. Of course, we wanted the children to enjoy their birthdays, so we made sure to provide cake for them!
Turnover of Communities
A New Chapter
After we ended our distribution of toys and relief goods, we still had some donated cash for Cebu on hand. We decided to use this amount to provide psycho-social support for some of the families we served in the area. The first step is to coordinate with a group of psychologists who are trained to provide the right psychosocial support. Fortunately, we were able to find such a group from Cebu and a team from NVC met and on October 23, we with psychologist Kirk Patrick Castro. He will pull in his other Cebu-based colleagues. Lenbi Laborte also joined the meeting, she represented CENVISNE, a network of Cebu-based NGOs. We will coordinate with the two moving forward. We submitted the list of our top 4 priority areas to and we’re now looking forward to our collaboration. A big thank you Erica Martin, NVC’s “on-call” psychologist, for arranging the meeting.
