Help me shelter my family in The Philippines

Help us shelter my extended family and our neighbours from the elements as they recover from Typhoon Odette. 

 

Just £145 is enough to provide a roof and walls for ONE family, we want to help at least 15 by raising more than £2,500.

 

December 2021 will forever be one of the most anxiety filled and heartbreaking months of my life. It was the month my home island was destroyed by a climate disaster.

 

On December 16, Typhoon Odette, a Category 5 Super Typhoon made landfall on Siargao Island located on the eastern coast of the Philippines. It tracked across the central Visayas region of the archipelago & eventually across to the island of Palawan. The storm is one of the strongest to make landfall in the last 30 years and has massively dissrupted the lives of over 7 million Filipinos including my relatives. A month later, the country is still struggling to recover.

 

 

 

 

What's the situation over there?

 

It is hard for me to explain just how destructive a Category 5 Super Cyclone is and the scale of this disaster's aftermath. I urge you to watch this short video showing the situation in Siargao Island in the aftermath of the storm.

 

My mother’s home town and the current home of many members of my extended family & friends is in one of the worst hit areas. It’s been over a month since the 200mph winds totally destroyed the island, it's ecology and homes of everyone that lives there.

 

Today, the situation is only slightly less critical and by no means easy. Water, food & power have returned, but the destitution faced across the community continues to get worse. It's compounded further by the total destruction of all property, crops, fishing boats and the disruption of the tourism industry that previously sustained their lives. Added to this, Covid, dehydration & starvation is impeding the traumatised survivors.

When my Mother was in High School, this woman helped clean and feed her and her family. Her home was reduced to rubble in the storm.

 

Owen Golgat, along with his mother, bathed, fed and took my Grandfather for walks or just kept him company in his final days. Now his home is destroyed.

 

For us, climate change is very real.

Studies indicates that human-caused climate change is contributing to stronger and more frequent tropical cyclones. Warmer sea surface waters provide more energy that typhoon need to form & intensify. With increased warmth, cyclones can carry more water, which they can dump on land through torrential rains.

 

The speed at which this storm grew in intensity is unheard of. Just 24 hours before it made land fall it was considered just a relatively mild Category 1 Typhoon. By the time it hit it had escalted to a terrifying "Extremely Catastrophic" Category 5 - the highest possible.

 

How are countries like mine going to survive a changing climate if the storms are stronger and they have less warning? At just 0.35% of global CO2 emissions, the Philippines has tragically, and undeservedly, become the poster child for climate change impact.

 

 

What will we do with your donation?

We would like to make a small and specific impact for the families from our home town with cash-in-hand donations. The money we raise and donate to these families will likely be used to buy roofing and wall-building materials that will provide shelter from the heat and rain as they continue to rebuild their lives, but ultimately it’s up to the recipients to spend it how they wish. They just need any help they can get.

 

We turn to you in our time of need. A small donation can help soften the pain of 100’s of people from our community. Donations received in my UK account will be converted into Filipino Pesos and transfered to my mother, Dinah Craven's Philippines bank account and from there, the funds will be directly distributed to our extended family and others we know and trust to be withdrawn as cash.

 

Perhaps in the future, we can aim to help with the clean water system or solar street lights. For now, we want to help ease the recovery.

 

We thank you for you compassion

Jamie, Dinah, Samantha & Ian Craven and the wider Penecitos family.