Whilst Comunion Peru's excellent work to help earthquake victims continues, I unfortunately don't have any major successes to report. At last count we had opened eight communal kitchens in the areas around Chincha, Pisco and Ica. I'll be heading back down to Chincha this weekend with Movimiento de Vida Cristiana to pack boxes of food, clothes and so on and to distribute them. This organisation has also been doing sterling work, including organising a concert on Saturday by a major international classical pianist (who I'd never heard of; more a comment on my knowledge of classical music than his level of fame I suspect) all receipts from which will go to their earthquake fund.
I'd like to say thank you to those who have either donated money to Comunion Peru's efforts or are engaging in efforts to fundraise on our behalf. It is truly appreciated and I can assure you every penny goes to relieve suffering and help people who need it.
I'm posting a video produced by Five Talents and starring the UK Director Tom Sanderson (oddly flirting with a South African accent during the radio interview) and Charles Eve, a Five Talents Trustee and Co-head of EMEA Compliance at Goldman Sachs. It was the latter of these two gentlemen who started the ball rolling towards my eventual employment with Five Talents and secondment to ECLOF Peru.
This blog is supposed to be geared towards explaining the ins and outs of microfinance, but for good reason has been diverted to discussion of the earthquake. In anticipation of my first post on microfinance, provisionally entitled Microfinance 101, this video is a good introduction to the topic and although filmed in Uganda the realities, views and ideas observable and expressed therein give a good feel for the issues I will raise later.
Showing posts with label Comunion Peru. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comunion Peru. Show all posts
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Monday, 3 September 2007
The suffering doesn't let up
Last week I was working with a third NGO called Comunion Peru (in case you missed the first two, please see blog entry of 10th August), started by the Anglican Bishop of Peru, William Godfrey. Comunion Peru has set up eight kitchens (so far) in the regions of Chincha, Pisco and Ica where the earthquake had its most devastating effect. My main goal has been to raise funds to keep these kitchens, and the additional ones we plan to open, supplied with food to keep them running and to keep the citizens of the surrounding communities fed.
The situation the people of San Juan Bautista, where I was on Friday night delivering storage sheds to three of our kitchens, and Pueblo Nuevo, where I was last weekend, find themselves in is desperate. When your house collapses, you don't just lose a place to live, a safe place to sleep, a place to congregate, a place to cook, a place to wash, a place to be. You lose most of your possessions. They get buried, crushed, smashed or just lost. The money you make which in normal times goes primarily to feed and clothe the family, to pay the lighting and water bills and in miniscule amounts, if there's any left over, to a little home improvement, suddenly is required to pay for new everythings. Plates, glasses, forks, knives, spoons, cups, beds, blankets, clothes, lights. There's no insurance policy. Even if you could afford it, who's going to provide contents insurance against an earthquake for houses built of mud brick lying near a major fault line, or if you could find that person, how could you afford the necessarily stratospheric premiums?
The kitchens which Comunion Peru (and others) have set up and are setting up provide a small amount of relief to people from the overwhelming challenges they now face, one less thing they need to worry about. All are looking to their government for help. And millions of dollars have already been earmarked for reconstruction by President Alan Garcia. When this will begin however is anyone's guess and in the interim, life must go on. The only visible contribution the government is making to this end thus far is to demolish the structurally unsafe houses and cart away the remains. In San Juan Bautista that duty falls to one man with a loader for what must be heading for 200 houses to be cleared (related article from El Comercio).
In the mean time, people are sleeping in tents or temporary straw shelters, visible in at least one of the photographs I took. On Friday night I passed the night in a tent in San Juan Bautista's main square, fully clothed all the way to my jacket in a sleeping bag and I barely slept from the intense cold. I'll admit that I couldn't wait to get home to a warm shower and my bed. One of the ladies we spoke to last week, when we were conducting the census in Pueblo Nuevo, told us that the worst part about the nights was not the dark from lack of electricity, nor the cold, nor the uncomfortable sleeping conditions, but the screaming of children. Screaming out of fear of further tremors. Screaming out of suffering from the cold.
The situation the people of San Juan Bautista, where I was on Friday night delivering storage sheds to three of our kitchens, and Pueblo Nuevo, where I was last weekend, find themselves in is desperate. When your house collapses, you don't just lose a place to live, a safe place to sleep, a place to congregate, a place to cook, a place to wash, a place to be. You lose most of your possessions. They get buried, crushed, smashed or just lost. The money you make which in normal times goes primarily to feed and clothe the family, to pay the lighting and water bills and in miniscule amounts, if there's any left over, to a little home improvement, suddenly is required to pay for new everythings. Plates, glasses, forks, knives, spoons, cups, beds, blankets, clothes, lights. There's no insurance policy. Even if you could afford it, who's going to provide contents insurance against an earthquake for houses built of mud brick lying near a major fault line, or if you could find that person, how could you afford the necessarily stratospheric premiums?
The kitchens which Comunion Peru (and others) have set up and are setting up provide a small amount of relief to people from the overwhelming challenges they now face, one less thing they need to worry about. All are looking to their government for help. And millions of dollars have already been earmarked for reconstruction by President Alan Garcia. When this will begin however is anyone's guess and in the interim, life must go on. The only visible contribution the government is making to this end thus far is to demolish the structurally unsafe houses and cart away the remains. In San Juan Bautista that duty falls to one man with a loader for what must be heading for 200 houses to be cleared (related article from El Comercio).
In the mean time, people are sleeping in tents or temporary straw shelters, visible in at least one of the photographs I took. On Friday night I passed the night in a tent in San Juan Bautista's main square, fully clothed all the way to my jacket in a sleeping bag and I barely slept from the intense cold. I'll admit that I couldn't wait to get home to a warm shower and my bed. One of the ladies we spoke to last week, when we were conducting the census in Pueblo Nuevo, told us that the worst part about the nights was not the dark from lack of electricity, nor the cold, nor the uncomfortable sleeping conditions, but the screaming of children. Screaming out of fear of further tremors. Screaming out of suffering from the cold.
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