Port Vila, 21 January 2019 — Vanuatu Red Cross Society is maintaining its emergency response on South East Ambrym to run various related disaster activities for a period of 3 months.
As part of its first mission, a team comprised of staffs and volunteers from Disaster, Health and shelter sections spent 8 days on the ground to respond to communities affected by the earthquake occurred on the Island on December 15, 2018.
The most affected village is Paamal that encountered numerous earthquakes, and uplift causing damages to houses in the village.
On the ground, VRCS team recruited and trained 24 volunteers to assist in delivering awareness’s, assessments, demonstration of building an emergency shelter and distributions of Non Food items, NFIs.
In partnership with Malampa Provincial Government and the National Disaster Management Office and chiefs, VRCS managed to assess 513 households with 2156 population in total.
The emergency response of VRCS targeted prioritised affected communities of Paamal, Asse, Sameu, and Ulei by distributing 1 Shelter Tool Kit, 1 Hygiene kit, 2 Taps and 2 Jerry Canes (10L) to 321 Household each.
“Our emergency response is only for a period of 3 months, and we will provide more activities to all host and affected communities within that timeframe.
This mean that we will have other activities to be implemented on the ground such as early warnings, early actions, Disaster Risk Reduction, First aid training, hand washing, provide psycho social support to families, how to prepare an Oral rehydration solution, introduction of tippy taps, engaging villagers on a clean-up campaign, distribution dignity kits, also to build additional shelter” explained Disaster Management Coordinator Augustin Garae.
A second team of staffs and volunteers from Headquarter and Sanma Branch will deployed this week to continue with VRCS activities to communities on the island.