Category: Disaster Relief

When Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) struck Central Philippines last year, one sector that became very vulnerable was education. Schools were either partly damaged or totally destroyed.  The children stopped schooling for more than two months because the classrooms were deemed unsafe.

Lemery is one of the Northern Iloilo towns where Goducate deployed Goducate Tent Schools (GTS) teams to help restore classrooms.  In Milan National High School (MHS), however, the classrooms were quickly rehabilitated by the Local Government Unit, so there was no need for tents or for tarpaulin-covered classrooms.  But when the GTS community development workers offered to hold English Corners at MHS, the principal responded positively.

I interviewed some of the students and they shared very poignant stories.  Ailyn, a grade 8 student, mentioned that before the typhoon came, her family had already transferred to the concrete-built house of her grandmother. “It was very traumatic”, she said, “especially when we saw that the flood water from the heavy rains carried away the house of my aunt.  Fortunately”, she added, “the entire members of her household had abandoned the house few minutes earlier”.

For Sandy John, his parents initially ignored the warning to transfer to a secure shelter.  But when the wind started to blow away their galvanized iron sheet roofing, they decided to move to their neighbor’s house.  “Together with my three other siblings and parents, we made it safely to the next house by crawling on the ground, otherwise we would have been blown down by the wind”, said Sandy John.

“Our dwelling suffered slight damage but I was not psychologically prepared for the incessant shaking of the house and the terrible helicopter-like noise generated by the extremely strong wind which lasted for three hours” ,Michaela related.  “We have never prayed as hard as before for the typhoon to stop”.

According to Christine Joy ,whose mother works as a domestic helper in Singapore, “The English Corner topics on friendship, self esteem, love, courage, dreams, and impressions oftentimes shared through poetry, songs, games, and film showing have done so much to heal me from my emotional turmoil”.

Each of the three English Corners at MHS takes 10-15 students, who meet once a week, and the session is moderated by a CDW.  “During our initial sessions, some students would cry whenever the discussions became sensitive.  We would then switch to other lively topics” ,said Paul, one of the CDWs.  “But the upside is that the students are getting fluent in English since this is the required medium of communication.”

“On behalf of our school, I thank Goducate for its significantly positive impact upon the lives of our 498 students”, said Abe, MHS principal. “I hope that the English Corners can continue way beyond our recovery period.”

About a month ago Goducate began to send out Goducate Tent Schools (GTS) teams to help rehabilitate schools in North Panay damaged in early November by Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). Before then the teams had been busy designing and making the tents and roof coverings.

The 4 teams (5-6 members per team) are based in their respective base-camps in the following towns—Lemery, Concepcion, Mambusao, and Carles. From their base camps the teams go to damaged schools to cover roofless classrooms with tarpaulins, and to set up specially designed tent-classrooms to replace damaged classrooms declared unsafe.  These teams are supported by the GTS engineering team, logistics team, and accounting team.  When classrooms are covered or replaced, classes can resume “normally.”

So far we have helped 38 schools, covered 63 classrooms with tarpaulins, and set up 18 tent-classrooms.  There are still hundreds of damaged classrooms in North Panay that we hope to rehab.

After GTS helps restore the physical condition of the classrooms in a school, we organize a Goducate Teachers’ Appreciation Day for the teachers of the school.  Many teachers have themselves lost their homes and have had to teach in roofless classrooms and work overtime to do make-up classes for their students.  They are Typhoon Haiyan’s unsung heroes/heroines.

Goducate provides gifts to the teachers, and our community development workers (CDWs) who are trained in massage therapy pamper the teachers with “spa” treatment.  We then give blank thank-you cards to the students to write their personal thank-you messages to their teachers. Many teachers are so moved by the messages that they cry uncontrollably before the whole school.  One teacher remarked “In the past we organized the Teachers’ Day activities in our school.  This is the first time someone else has organized a Teachers’ Appreciation Day for us. We are so touched!”

After the Goducate Teachers’ Appreciation Day, we work with the teachers to do “remedial” classes for students (most of whom have fallen behind in their studies because of the disruption by Typhoon Haiyan). Our CDWs also work with the Parents-Teachers Associations to hold community classes on public health, nutrition, agriculture, and livelihood skills. This community work will intensify when summer holidays begin in March, and our CDWs can focus their energies on communities (rather than remedial classes).

Goducate is planning to send its 5th GTS team to Leyte (near Tacloban) to do similar rehab work.

After the installation of 17 Living Water Treatment Systems (LWTS) at different locations in Panay and Negros islands for Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) survivors, the next step undertaken by Goducate and Water Missions International (WMI) was to teach the stakeholders on safe water, sanitation, and hygiene  (WASH), as well as to make them aware about the availability of safe water for everyone in the community.

Fifteen trainings have been conducted so far for municipal officials, local government unit (LGU) heads, school principals, students, barangay (village) captains, and officers of civil society organizations.  A resource speaker from WMI headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina, USA, talked on how water gets contaminated, how microbes get into the stomach, how water can be purified and treated using LWTS, how to store treated water in containers, how to wash hands properly, and how healthy hygiene and sanitation behaviors can protect everyone from diarrheal illness.

At every training session, the Goducate-WMI liaison officer also explained the memorandum of understanding between Goducate and the LGU recipient of LWTS.  He also spoke about the Goducate Training Center (GTC) and the on-going activities of GTC-trained community development workers in municipalities affected by Typhoon Haiyan

Goducate is committed to holding other community-based trainings in partnership with WMI, not only on WASH but also on emerging and sustainable technologies popularized by Goducate to help ensure food security in needy communities.