One fundamental truth about humanity is the idea that help will come no matter the disaster.

A day after Typhoon Odette (international: Rai) ravaged central and northern Palawan, local communities were in shock because of the unprecedented damages to life and property caused by the typhoon, with a total estimate of more than P7.8 billion.

With the local governments already stretched thin from managing the COVID-19 pandemic, A Single Drop for Safe Water (ASDSW), and Roots of Health (ROH), non-profit organizations based in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, shifted their focus to augment the government’s relief and rehabilitation efforts.

“The local governments were already tapped out by COVID-19. They have been impacted by the typhoon themselves, but they are mandated to be there for response.”

—Kevin Lee, Executive Director,
A Single Drop for Safe Water

“The local governments were already tapped out by COVID-19. They have been impacted by the typhoon themselves, but they are mandated to be there for response. We augment government efforts by providing capacities in areas they lack. Helping is not rocket science. It’s the right thing to do and we have the capacity,” said Kevin Lee, executive director of ASDSW.

Survivors, not victims

A day after the aftermath of the typhoon, Lee mobilized his team to start the initial assessment of the impacts of Odette, coordinating with the City Disaster Risk Reduction Office (CDRRMO) and Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Office (PDRRMO).

“We don’t call them victims; we call them survivors. They are not mere beneficiaries, but partner communities.”

—Kevin Lee, Executive Director,
A Single Drop for Safe Water

“One of the overlooked aspects of humanitarian response is how communities react. We don’t call them victims; we call them survivors. They are not mere beneficiaries, but partner communities. They are active participants in their own relief and rehabilitation,” Lee explained.

Since the civic groups started their humanitarian response primarily targeting communities in Puerto Princesa City and Roxas, around 3,850 households have been provided with clean and safe drinking water by installing water systems and providing generator sets to the local water utilities. Nearly 3,000 households have been supplied with water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) kits; and 551 households received materials to rebuild their shelters.

Local communities are already doing their part in their own rehabilitation, yet there is still a pressing need to help them in recovery through technical assistance and resources. 

“When we went to Babuyan (northern village of Puerto Princesa City), the community had started on their own to get their water system back up before we arrived. Relationship building with local officials and communities is important. We ask them what they need and we tell them what we can and cannot do. It’s about showing up and doing something,” Lee added.

Acknowledging that Palawan is not prioritized by the international community because of lack of information and massive devastation in Visayas and Mindanao, the civic groups are aiming to gather at least P80 million to fund the extensive rehabilitation plan. This will also fund the conduct of market mapping assessments to help in the economic recovery and food security of marginalized communities, providing reproductive health services; and boosting access to clean and safe drinking water.

Build thriving communities

Typhoon Odette magnified the susceptibility of vulnerable groups including women, girls and persons living with disabilities, who are still recovering from the intense months of COVID-19, requiring complex, articulated and comprehensive response.

“Women and girls, indigenous peoples, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, the elderly, and persons with disabilities are among the many vulnerable groups more severely impacted by natural disasters including the COVID-19 pandemic. Ongoing relief efforts are focused on mitigating these intersectional vulnerabilities.”

—Amina Evangelista-Swanepoel, Executive Director,
Roots of Health

Amina Evangelista Swanepoel, founding executive director of Roots of Health, emphasized the importance of life-saving and time-critical recovery needs of the most at-risk people living in areas hardest-hit by the typhoon, with heightened risk of violence, exploitation, and abuse.

ROH is constantly monitoring the situation of these vulnerable groups, while incorporating best practices to ensure that disaster response adequately addresses their unique needs, without subjecting them to even more marginalization. It will also be undertaking a gender snapshot profile on Palawan and the effects of Typhoon Odette.

“Women and girls, indigenous peoples, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, the elderly, and persons with disabilities are among the many vulnerable groups more severely impacted by natural disasters including the COVID-19 pandemic. Ongoing relief efforts are focused on mitigating these intersectional vulnerabilities. Pregnant women, for example, need regular checkups and prenatal vitamins, which were already difficult to access even before the typhoon. Senior citizens, whose lives have been so impacted by the pandemic, are even more at risk now with limited access to basic needs and health care. Women and girls, meanwhile, are more vulnerable to unplanned pregnancies and gender-based violence,” Swanepoel said.

Shelter is one of the most critical and essential needs of displaced populations, requiring timely shelter intervention in the form of shelter-grade materials. 

Meanwhile, primary concerns with children include water, sanitation and hygiene (susceptibility to diarrhea, access to water and sanitation); health and nutrition (infection prevention and control and prevention of malnutrition among pregnant women and children); and child protection (psycho-social support, prevention of violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect).

“The typhoon decimated the fishing fleet in coastal and indigenous communities. Fishing and tourism were two of the main income earners.”

—Kevin Lee, Executive Director,
A Single Drop for Safe Water

ASDSW and ROH have been partnering with the government in their efforts to meet the needs of those most affected and displaced, responding to crises since 2010, including Typhoon Sendong (international name: Washi, 2011); Typhoon Pablo (international name: Bopha, 2012); Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan, 2013); Typhoon Vinta (international name: Temin, 2017); and the Marawi Crisis in 2017.

“Recovery is one of the biggest issues which will take a long time. The typhoon decimated the fishing fleet in coastal and indigenous communities. Fishing and tourism were two of the main income earners. High value crops, such as banana, coconuts, and cashew require several years to replace,” Lee said.

According to local officials, the “hardest hit” municipality of Roxas alone recorded damages worth P5.7 billion; Dumaran with P1.1 billion; San Vicente with P49 million; Araceli with P471 million; Kalayaan with P39 million; Taytay with P133.4 million; Quezon with P2.5 million; Cagayancillo with P52 million; Aborlan with P4.3 million; Brooke’s Point with P1 million; Linapacan P137, 000; and Puerto Princesa City with P281.3 million.

After relief and response, rehabilitation has to follow. Building thriving communities in terms of socio-economic resiliency is vital in community-level rehabilitation.

“For now, what’s important is getting Palaweños back to their feet―doing that with dignity where they participate and they understand that this is a compounding emergency,” Lee added.

Any crisis and especially this one calls for a whole-of-society approach, engaging and capacitating all actors, traditional or non-traditional, and integrating them into a coordinated effort that is comprehensive and inclusive.

ASDSW and ROH are accepting donations here.

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About Roots of Health

Ugat ng Kalusugan (Roots of Health), founded in 2009, works to empower women, young people and families in Palawan, Philippines to lead healthy reproductive lives by providing rights- and results-based educational and clinical services. The organization improves women’s and young people’s reproductive health and decreases the number of unplanned pregnancies and HIV incidence by providing sexuality health education and access to modern contraceptives through a clinical services program. 

Roots of Health (ROH) is registered in the United States as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Ugat ng Kalusugan (UNK) is registered in the Philippines as a non-stock, non-profit organization. ROH exists to fundraise for UNK. All program activities take place in the Philippines under UNK. For all intents and purposes, the two are one organization. 

In the Philippines, Ugat ng Kalusugan is accredited by the Department of Health (DOH), the Commission on Population (POPCOM), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Provincial Government of Palawan, and the City of Puerto Princesa. We hold Memorandum of Agreements with the Department of Education, Palawan State University and Western Philippines University.

About A Single Drop for Safe Water – Single Drop Consultancy Services (ASDSW-SDCS)

ASDSW-SDCS is a hybrid development and humanitarian organization that works with communities and local governments to: Strengthen Water and Sanitation governance structures and systems, Create community and institutional demand for Water and Sanitation Services as well as building or strengthening service providers organizational, Infrastructure and Technical Capacities.  It also manages and implements large scale humanitarian responses as well as building the resilience of local communities and LGUs.

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From clean coal to carbon trading, the solutions that companies and governments propose are often technology heavy and years away from being implemented. What if part of the solution was simply to have fewer consumers? The idea is not a new one. In fact at the first Earth Summit in Brazil in 1993, the main drivers of global destruction were found to be overconsumption and overpopulation. Planning your family and having fewer children is not as exciting an idea as solar powered cars but it can be an easier goal to attain.

The question of how to curb population growth is different for each country as there are so many variables. Here in the Philippines, the 12th most populous country in the world, the answer is simple. Provide women with the education to decide if they want to use contraception, and give them easy access to contraception if they decide they want it. We don’t believe one should come without the other. Providing contraception without information on how to use it would be negligent and could harm the health of women and children. To provide only the education but not the products, like Manila’s Mayor Lim is planning to do is not particularly helpful – it does not help poor women who decide they want contraceptives but can’t afford to buy them.

It is poorer Filipino families that are most at risk. The ones that cannot afford contraception, much less more children. Middle class and upper class couples here enjoy the power to determine their family size. As a result, their children enjoy higher levels of education, better health care, and generally a higher quality of life. Larger family sizes make it more difficult for poor families to break the cycle of poverty.

And when we feel the effects of climate change, it is the poor families that rely directly on the environment for a living that are hardest hit. When the oil spills in the ocean, fishermen are the ones who lose their livelihood and their way of life. When landslides occur it is often people in very remote, poor and underserved areas that are hardest hit. A 7.0 earthquake hits New Zealand and two are seriously injured. A quake of similar magnitude hits Haiti and 230,000 die. The difference? Population and wealth. Haiti just happens to have the highest fertility rate in the Western Hemisphere.

The responsibility of providing families with the opportunity to plan their families falls on a range of shoulders. Traditionally it is the government’s responsibility. Due to religious convictions regarding contraception and a blurred line between church and state, that is not an option in the Philippines. Although she blocked reproductive health legislation, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo admitted using contraception early in her marriage, but has refused to come out and endorse artificial methods of family planning because of the influence of the Catholic Church. Current President Benigno Aquino III has pledged support for providing family planning methods to poor Filipinos but has faced a storm of criticism from the Catholic Church. Whether the government will ever play a meaningful role in reproductive healthcare in the Philippines remains to be seen. In the meantime, foreign aid from countries such as Australia, the US and Sweden are helping, and there are many maternal health groups that are filling the void left by government inaction, including Roots of Health.

$20 provides one woman with contraception for a year. That could buy her enough time to nurse an older child until a healthier age and allow her time to save money for her next child. If you would like to empower her by giving her the choice to make these very important decisions for herself, donate here.

The post “Stop Global Warming. Wear a Condom.” appeared first on Roots Of Health.

Pulang Lupa, literally means “red earth”. The location received its name due to the presence of cinnabar (Mercury) in the soil, which gives the earth a distinctly reddish tinge. During the years 1953 to 1976 Palawan Quicksilver Mining Incorporated (PQMI) removed 2,900 tons of mercury from the area. The red earth is so apparent here due to the bare slopes that were excavated during mining and were never rehabilitated.

Residents have built their houses on the former steps created by an open-pit mine. They have planted vegetables and fruit trees and many families keep animals, although  these are owned by other people). Mercury is a very versatile element: as a mineral solid it is harmless. When bacteria break it down it turns into methylmercury and can be absorbed by living organisms. It can be absorbed through the skin and lungs and also ingested by eating organism such as plants, fish and domestic animals that contain methylmercury.

Once inside the body, Mercury remains and accumulates as an individual continues to ingest or absorb it. Very little is excreted over time. An excess of Mercury in the system can result in fevers, headaches, paralysis, nausea, memory loss, brain damage and can eventually lead to death. Because Mercury travels through the bloodstream it is always transmitted from pregnant mothers to their children. These children are at a high risk for  mental retardation, physical birth defects and a host of other issues.

A short walk along the hillside leads to the “Sanitary Landfill”. In the West it would just be called a landfill, but plastic lining to prevent leaching, pipes to capture and transport methane gas and bulldozers to compact the trash are new concepts here in the Philippines. Many residents of Pulang Lupa used to make money by picking through the trash at the landfill until a city policy citing health concerns made it illegal for them to do so. It seems that having no income is worse for one’s health than picking through trash is because despite the policy, many residents continue to sift through the trash. Now they do it at night, when there are no guards to chase them away. Piles of recyclable materials are located outside almost every household in the community, waiting to be resold to a middleman.

A little further down from the landfill is a man-made lake. From a distance the water looks fresh and inviting. Closer inspection reveals a different picture. The banks are lined with trash, bags are visible in the murky depths and a greenish film collects on the surface. According to studies, methylmercury levels are highest in this pit lake. This is the water that children swim in and that farmers use for irrigation.

The mine at Pulang Lupa was never truly rehabilitated. Thirty years later there are ferns and acacia saligna “Port Jacksons” growing, which indicate some effort to rehabilitate the land. However, the mostly barren, red earth still abounds and the backdrop to every scene in this community are bare, bright red cliffs – an ever-present reminder of the dangers of living in the area. An added health risk to local benefits in addition to Mercury poisoning is the risk of landslides. The exposed soil leads to erosion, particularly during the periods of heavy rain in Palawan from June to October. Deep gullies line the area, putting some houses in precarious positions.

After analyzing data from our needs assessment, we decided to work in Pulang Lupa because out of all our prospective sites, residents of Pulang Lupa have the lowest levels of income, the lowest levels of education for women, the lowest levels of contraceptive use, the highest number of children per family, the highest levels of malnutrition and the highest incidence of women not accessing the Barangay Health Center. These factors alone place residents at high risk of negative health outcomes. Throw in the environmental concerns and this population is even more vulnerable. As we work within the community we will endeavor to find some solutions to these issues that the environment has thrown at them. We will be looking into more studies on the area and hope to educate the community on the unseen dangers they face. We hope to work with residents of the community in further reclaiming the red earth and finding sustainable and realistic solutions to these health problems in Pulang Lupa.

The post Health Risks and History of Pulang Lupa appeared first on Roots Of Health.

Upon selecting Pulang Lupa as our first program site, we mapped all the households within the location and spent 4 days conducting in-depth surveys within every household in the community.

View the photos of the Pulang Lupa.

Number of households – 59

Number of people living within the 59 households – 315 (average of 5.3 individuals per household)

Percentage of households with access to their own toilet facility – 61%

Percentage of households with access to their own electricity – 44%

Percentage of households with connection to their own supply of water – 5%   (95% of the people in the community do not have their own connection to a water supply and have to walk down a steep hill to collect water from a well for bathing and cleaning and they buy water directly from a water company for drinking and cooking).

100% of the respondents live in homes made of nipa or thatch, and 95% of the houses have only one room for all of the inhabitants to share.

42% of the respondents do not have a job.

The average salary in the community is around P3,330 ($66). However, this figure is skewed because of outliers– two households have a monthly income of around P10,000 ($200) and many more have a monthly income between P500 ($10) and P1000 ($20).

Less than 30% of the respondents practice some form of family planning.

62% of respondents said that the ideal number of children is either 2 or 3.

Only 54% of respondents have been pregnant 3 times or less.

Of the remaining women, 8 (13.5%) have been pregnant 4 times. 3 women (5%) have been pregnant 5 times. 6 women (10%) have been pregnant 6 times.  3 respondents (5%) have been pregnant 7 times. 2 women (3%) have been pregnant 8 times.  3 respondents (5%) have been pregnant 9 times. 2 women (3%) of respondents have been pregnant 10 times and 1 woman has been pregnant 12 times.

Nearly all births are at home with a traditional healer as a birth attendant.

10 women have had no formal schooling in their lives. 17 women went to anywhere from 1st to 5th grade in elementary school. 14 women went up to the 6th grade and completed elementary school. 9 women had some high school education but only 5 women actually graduated from high school. 1 woman went up to her second year in college, and 3 women completed vocational or secretarial school.

All of the women have experienced difficulty in feeding their families, and very few can afford to buy meat or fish. Most women reported eating rice with either eggplant, kangkong (a type of spinach), plantains or casava when we asked them to tell us everything they had eaten the day before we interviewed them.

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