Support For Cyclone Affected Pango Community

Our family is lucky enough to be living on the tropical island of Efate, Vanuatu in a beautiful village called Pango. Unfortunately the village of Pango and many other parts of Vanuatu were directly hit by two, back-to-back, category 4 Tropical Cyclones last week. A 6 month state of emergency has been declared for Vanuatu.

Tropical cyclone Judy was the first and she was fierce, thrashing and weakening everything in her path. Following Judy Tropical Cyclone Kevin moved slowly gaining more and more intensity as he got closer. Of course many of us had no idea how strong as we had lost all means of communication when Judy went through. Kevins relentless long hurricane force gusts, lashing heavy, rain and rough seas dragged on for hours obliterating everything in its path. Houses flattened, roofing lifted and flung away, windows smashed, power poles down, trees uprooted, greenery completely stripped away leaving everything brown and bare. Crops, farms and gardens destroyed and with them peoples food and income.

The people of Pango are extremely resourceful and competant people and have started to clean up, salvage and rebuild what they can. Even having lost everything they still walk around smiling and offering help to others. Everyone here purchase their fruit and vegetables from the local markets so everyone will be affected by the loss of crops and gardens. Those who were already living a tough life and rely solely on their farms to survive are not in a good way. No home, no food and no income. This is not a quick fix, it will take months to get gardens up and running again and some things may even take years.

We have walked around the local area and talked with many people about how we can possibly help. Fabrice has spent many hours clearing yards and helping to rebuild and this support will be ongoing from us while it's needed. He has also attended local community meetings and visited the more remote areas of Pango helping to survey the damage and work out who needs the most help and how to assist them. With everything we have learned through this process we the community of Pango have decided that a GoFundMe fund-raiser would be the most useful thing we could do. All donated funds will be discussed and their use will be agreed upon on a needs basis by the community themselves. Some examples of what funds will be used for are food and other necessities such as clothes, towels and bedding as well as building and gardening supplies.

If you are wanting to help then please donate to the "Support For Cyclone Affected Pango Community" GoFundMe. Every cent will go directly to the community to be used in a way that they feel it is needed most for the people that need it the most.

Thank you

Freya and Fabrice