On January 12, when I was having an afternoon meeting with some of my staff at the Goducate Training Center in Laguna, Philippines, we were interrupted by another staff member who ran to tell us about the thick clouds outside caused by the eruption of the Taal volcano just 34 km away from us.
Over the next 2 days, people living within 7 km of the volcano were forced to evacuate to nearby towns, where they were housed on basketball courts, in schools, in churches, and wherever they could find temporary shelter.
We began to collect donations, some of which came from Goducate sponsors in Singapore. With the donations we were able, on January 19, to bring relief goods for about 500 families.
When we arrived in the area, we were briefed by the Police ground commander on the current situation. We then visited several evacuation centers and were immediately struck by how overcrowded they were. We also visited homes of Good Samaritans who were housing people who could not be accommodated in the relief centers.
Distributing relief goods at an apartment evacuation center
Three days later, on January 22, I received a call from one of the evacuation centers that we had visited. The 48 families (183 people) in this center were being forced to leave because the authorities raised the danger zone to a 14 km radius from the volcano. The center was within this radius, and thus considered unsafe. None of the other centers had space for these families.
We immediately called the Philippines National Police, for which we have been conducting leadership training, and asked them to help by sending trucks to bring those families to our training center.
Thankfully, after 3 days the government authorities declared it was safe for the evacuees to return to their homes if they were not within 7 km of the volcano, the area still considered unsafe. We were thus able to send the families home on January 25. We are thankful that our training center could house these families for a few days. We also hope to be able to house displaced groups when necessary.
Evacuees arriving at Goducate Training Center, Laguna
Evacuees in Goducate Training Center Laguna
