By Humanity First Canada Team —

On Friday, November 8, 2013, Typhoon Haiyan devastated a large path through the middle of the Philippines.

By Monday, November 11, 2013, Humanity First initiated an international response.  The team started the initial assessment and relief operations in cooperation and coordination with other NGOs and GOs via the GDACS VOSOCC immediately following the disaster.

The team from Canada met with officials from UNICEF and OCHA in Manila and then travelled to Roxas City to immediately establish a command, coordination and cooperation presence within the OCHA clusters in the Capiz Capital Building. Humanity First is now participating in WASH, Shelter, Camp coordination, Education clusters and is monitoring the Health cluster for any possible unmet needs in that area.

To date, Humanity First has installed three (4) Water Purification Systems (2 in Capiz province, one (1) in Iloilo province the fourth one in barangay Olotayan (Roxas City). Each unit provides the capacity to deliver 5,000 L/day of purified water and expected to service about 150 families. Our team left spare filters and spare UV light.

Humanity First has also participated in numerous EC and MIRA assessments for both Camp Management and the Canadian Military.

Humanity First is currently working to install two small temporary learning spaces (TLSs) in Olotayan. This work will include the provision of a 5 kW generator to this island who has been without any power since the storm.

Humanity First is engaged with GOs and NGOs throughout the Western Visayas, including IOM (Camp Management), GOAL (Ireland), UNICEF (WASH), UNICEF (Education), WFP (Food), WHO (Health), Province of Capiz, Province of Iloilo, Mayor of Concepcion, Mayor of Roxas City, and many barangay captains.

The HF team is also working on assessment missions with the Canadian Military to three municipalities SW of Roxas City. There is a severe shortage of assessment and interventions in the majority of the island, and awareness of this has spurred some new assignments of NGO and GO resources.

Another assessment and food distribution mission carried out to the Barangay island of Olotayan using helicopters from the Canadian Air Force. This island is a community of 1,400 people (350 families) that have not received any visits or assessments from aid agencies. They have 159 houses that have been completely destroyed, and are in need of CGI (corrugated iron – roof sheets), nails and lumber. They have not been receiving food or water aid, and are running low on these supplies.

Humanity First purchased and delivered 150kg of rice, and the Canadian military delivered 200L of water. The Canadian military also conducted a mobile medical clinic. The local school has been 80% destroyed by the storm, however they have restarted some school on very reduced hours to rotate classes through.

Humanity First has received a generous gift of two large tents from British Telecom, and intend to set these up as Temporary Learning Spaces in Olotayan specifically to provide a much needed daycare space, and a kindergarten classroom.

Humanity First has procured some local supplies for shelter distribution. We are one of the first to provide shelter distribution and look forward to starting some shelter distribution tomorrow. This includes rolls of tarping material, corrugated sheets, wood, nails and grommets and other related supplies.

There are some schools in Ponteverda that are acting as Evacuation Centres, which are planning on evicting the IDPson Monday so that they can resume classes. The joint initiative being proposed is to build a temporary tent structure, which the Canadian military is looking to construct, using some materials procured by Humanity First and UNICEF.

Summary of Current projects underway include:

·                    Procurement of Temporary Learning Spaces (TLS) kits including distribution and setup of these structures.

·                    Procurement of medium-long term shelter kits to support early recovery and reconstruction, including distribution and coordination of these NFIs.

·                    Support of distribution of WASH components (currently focused on clean water supply). Includes installation of Water Filtration Units and distribution of Water Survival Boxes.

·                    Distribution of Food and Water on as required basis to fill any gaps.