The Philippines suffered a massive destruction last November 8th when Typhoon Haiyan poured all its rage in central Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan is recorded as one of the most powerful storms to make landfall which caused catastrophic damage.
The impact of the storm surge has been tremendous causing more than 5,000 people to have lost their lives, over 27,000 were injured, almost 2,000 people were reported missing and an estimated 800,000 are displaced after Typhoon Haiyan left a wake of utter destruction.
The Professional Embalmers’ Association of Ireland together with the Deathcare Academy of Ireland in partnership with local volunteers in the Philippines have identified communities is the remote villages of the town of Dumarao in Capiz Province who have not received any form of support from the local or national government nor from any other agencies. The residents of Barangay Dacuton, Barangay Sibariwan and Barangay Aglanot including two primary schools and one secondary school were the recipients of the donations.
The local residents have been pleading for help in constructing temporary shelters for their families. Local schools are struggling with their classes since the storm had completely ruined the school’s gymnasium and ruined the galvanized iron roofing of the buildings. ‘Our students want to come to school but we do not have any place to hold the classes because the roofs were blown away by the storm. We have divided the students into two groups composing of different grades or year levels. Then we ask each group to come only every other day in order to accommodate all of them.’ explained by one of the school staff of Dacuton Elementary School. The residents were screaming for tents, nails and other materials that they can use to build a temporary shelter.
Our partner organisation gathered 40 volunteers and formed 5 teams who went out to the schools and helped build temporary roofs for the school buildings. Tents, nails and wires were distributed to the families of the three recipient villages. Bags of food, clothing and blankets were also distributed. The students in Dacuton were very happy and grateful to receive their packs of copy papers, notebooks and pens.
We will be holding our Educational Seminar on the day of our General Meeting which will take place during the Funeral Times Trade Show in Citywest Hotel, Dublin. Please take note that the seminar will take place in October 2, 2013 starting at 12:00 noon until 1:00pm.