Month: April 2016

It has been over two years since Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest typhoons in recorded history, devastated parts of the Philippines but even as I write this sentence I don’t think it can ever really capture what truly happened in the Philippines on November 8th 2013 or what has happened since and happens still every day.

In September 2015 I spent 10 days travelling around Eastern Samar; one of the poorest regions in the Philippines and the area most affected by Typhoon Haiyan, known locally as Yolanda. Myself and my colleagues met with our partners who introduced us to the people they have been serving in the aftermath of this typhoon.

I learned many things during this trip, I learned about how our partner NGOs provide child friendly spaces for children. I learned that they are helping people to rebuild their livelihoods and send their children to school, that they are rebuilding homes and providing shelter. That they are advocating for child protection, for evacuation centres and stronger houses.

But what I really learned was how this happens and how behind each of these words or initiatives are people. People who work day and night to ensure that others have somewhere safe to live, who have left their own homes and families to move to a different part of the country so they can help communities rebuild their lives. People who keep going regardless of how tired they are, and who can still smile, in the face of coping with such tragedy. I met the people who benefit from this work, many who were already living in poverty before the typhoon struck. Often we speak of those affected by disasters but with so much going on in the world today, sometimes it is easy to forget that they are people; people with hopes and dreams who laugh and cry, who want their children to go to school and to have a home that is safe.

But standing on what is known as Ground Zero of the typhoon, looking out to the sea that now looked so calm and yet had ravaged so many communities and took so many lives I realised once again that people are at the heart of everything. And that I was in the company of extraordinary people.

I stood on the spot where 2000 people lost their lives, I visited a mass grave and walked by areas of beach where people had to be buried where they lay. And every time, without fail I was amazed by the resilience I saw in the midst of such sadness. The faith of pastors who as they told their stories cried whilst giving thanks to God for all they had. Even though they had lost everything. The farmer who had his whole livelihood wiped out but started again with nothing but a salvaged solar battery, and who now shares his farm with the community and teaches farming skills. The hope in a mothers eyes that her child will go to school even though the odds seem stacked against her.

But this is the legacy of Typhoon Haiyan; that people who have lost so much are still going, are rebuilding their lives, are preparing for future disasters and are still, in the midst of everything thankful and turning their eyes upon God.

The following stories belong to the people of Eastern Samar, the unsung heroes of disaster; the social workers, the pastors and shepherds of every faith, the community workers, the anti-trafficking volunteers, the leaders of NGOs and the men, women and children who refuse to give up.

First published for Tearfund Ireland, in Teartimes, Autumn 2015 Edition

Every now and then you meet people who change your life, not dramatically or forcefully but just meeting them changes you. Changes how you see the world, how you see yourself.

I met many people like this in the Philippines. So many there isn’t time to write about them all. But they all shared one thing in common and this was selflessness. They all shared a deep desire to change the world around them, to respond to disaster not with fear and apathy but with hope and honour. And they did this in the everyday ordinary of life. But in that everyday, they made sacrifices. Some left their own families and children behind to move to a completely different part of the Philippines, to help those in need. They left everything that was safe and known to enter into the chaos and uncertainty of disaster relief. They took on another person’s burdens and laid their own to the side.

I stood in the middle of a mass grave speaking to one of these extraordinary people as he explained to me that when he first came to Eastern Samar he was horrified by the devastation that the typhoon had left behind. The pain and the grief of the people he met was inescapable. He had nightmares every night but he continued on, none the less. I asked him how he kept going, in those first few months when things were so difficult and he simply told me ‘it is my job, I am here to be strong’. And that was that. No other explanation was provided. He stood looking out to sea, the untold stories of so many buried around us, people who had lost their lives far too early and I understood. His needs were secondary, his priority were the people he served.

And he served them by getting up every morning to be in the field by 8am where he would meet with families struggling to survive, he worked all day until 6 and then by night wrote up his case notes of the day’s activities. He had 100 names of children on his list and he impacted the life of every single one of them and that of their families. He helped them to restart their lives through small businesses, he found homes for orphans, he showed parents how to keep their children safe from the ever present risk of trafficking, and how to protect themselves in future disasters.

But above all else, he gave them hope, hope that they could have a different future, that they are not resigned to poverty and destitution. And he showed them love. In a world where they are invisible and forgotten, where their own society shuns them and their government ignores them he showed them that they are important, they are special, they are loved. They are worth fighting for, they are worth the nightmares and the long hours. They are not a statistic on a long list of names, they are unique and they are eternally loved.

I think of the Philippines often as I look out from my office into the dark, grey skies of Dublin, wondering if anything I do makes a difference and his story reminds me that everything I do makes a difference. What that difference is, is my decision to make.