Grassroots women in the Philippines respond to typhoon Ondoy

Typhoon Ondoy engulfed the Philippines this past weekend, affecting 2.2 million people and killing more than 300 people. According to the latest reports, a total of 686,699 people (135,471 households) reside in 726 evacuation shelters, which are already overcrowded. Because of this overcrowding, many families have been forced to return to their already submerged or flooded houses. In just two days, the Philippines received the equivalent of a typical monsoon month's rainfall, submerging 80 percent of the capital city Manila and causing the most extensive flooding Manila has experienced in more than 40 years.

The Huairou Commission and GROOTS International network members DAMPA, Lihok Philippina and the Bantay Banay network, COPE, and AHILLSA are working actively on the ground to ensure that the affected communities are receiving aid, food, clothes, and medication, especially in rural areas where governments have not yet been able to reach local communities. Our member groups, which work in our Community Resilience Campaign, have created youth and women's committees to monitor the areas, clean up the debris, assist in the distribution of aid and have developed a support group for the female victims. The groups have set up community disaster monitoring and response groups to bring relief goods and to treat the most in-need victims. However, the needs greatly exceed the available supplies and human resources.

Jo Vicente-Angeles from member group COPE reported, "In Barangay Napindan, Taguig City, one of the partner communities of COM we visited yesterday 1, 500 families are affected, the community is still flooded, the people were saying that the flood might last for two months. The evacuation centre is congested, 10 families fit together in one regular size classroom (10x10sq.meters), with the result being that some of the residents opt to stay in their houses still under water, but unfortunately they are not reached by the relief goods."

Despite these conditions, the groups are demonstrating innovative leadership more than ever, working together to setting up relief and coordination centres, prioritizing the areas worst devastated by the flash floods and distributing goods to the communities they work in. Even though relief goods are being distributed by government agencies, NGOs/CSOs, religious and civic groups, the need for food and basic non-food essential items is immense, and the Bantay Banay networks have been campaigning for relief goods for the immediate needs of women and children. The groups have requested that relief packs be more women-friendly, as few of them contain female hygiene materials, and psycho-social activities needs to be facilitated. The group has also begun organizing women's groups and the community members who have experienced in trauma-healing to take charge in this important activity, and to listen to the fears and worries of the victims.

Bracing for a typhoon that might hit this weekend, members of DAMPA, COPE and Lihok Philippina are preparing low lying communities for evacuation for fear of landslides, mudslides and more flooding. Our members are requesting financial support, food, clothing and basic items for hygiene and medicine. The groups in the Philippines are actively taking part in decision making forums and pressing for women's participation in planning, implementing and evaluating disaster risk reduction and recovery programmes. When grassroots women's groups are supported as experts of their communities, and not as victims and vulnerable groups, their disaster risk reduction priorities and practices represent a long term development approach that reduces vulnerability and poverty. All donations will go directly the affected families and community organizers in their efforts.

For more information, please contact Julia Miller at Julia.miller@huairou.org or Erica Reade at Erica.reade@huairou.org Please contact Femie Duka at DAMPA: femieduka@yahoo.com
DAMPA: dampafed@yahoo.com
Tessie Fernandez at Lihok Philippina: tbf_lihok@yahoo.com
Jo Vicente-Angeles at COPE: jovicenteangeles@yahoo.com