Philippines Typhoon Update

My colleague Danny Pins was in the Philippines this week and reported back to several of us this afternoon on what he’s seen and done. We’ll send out more information shortly, but in the meantime here are a few important points he made:

(1) Paradoxically, notwithstanding the massive property damage and huge dislocation, the loss of life was much lower than expected. This was partly due to the (unfortunate) experience that the islands have with typhoons (some twenty a year), and a well-organized response that allowed many to get to shelter and safety fast.

      (2) The resilience of the civilian population is remarkable. The main emphasis of the next phase of reconstruction is going to be “debriefing” and rehabilitation – to get as many children as possible into school and as many adults as possible back to work

       (3) The geography of the country is really important – it’s an archipelago of over 7000 islands and a population of almost 100 million scattered around those islands. What that means is that JDC didn’t go straight to Tacloban, like many other NGOs – we’re focusing on other less-visited areas.  But areas that were equally-severely damaged, nonetheless.

The aim right now is coordination. We've spent approximately 30% of the funds with partners on the ground and coordinating with the local Jewish community. Now we’re going to move to the next phase and look at longer-term strategies to help the population. More on this to come.

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Life in the middle of death

Typhoon Haiyan's impact has been awful. But in the midst of the suffering there are some inspiring stories of hope and life.

Because of the generosity and support of amazing donors in North America, JDC has been able to provide the following supplies to the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) field hospital in Bogo, at the northern end of Cebu Island:

Equipment: Portable Ultrasounds, electrocardiograms, CR scanners, Monitors.

Supplies: Pharmaceuticals especially for babies and children, baby food, bottles, diapers, children's crutches.

The team delivered a baby boy last night. His mother named him “Israel.”

There's a lot more work to do: there’s no running water in the island, tens of thousands are homeless. 

Whatever help you can give will save lives immediately. You can go to www.jdc.org to make a donation.

Shabbat shalom.

JDC SENDS URGENT AID TO PHILIPPINES, PARTNERS WITH IDF FIELD HOSPITAL

Advance Team Heads to Island Nation to Ensure Impactful Response

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, New York, November 13, 2013 -- As part of its ongoing response to the extraordinary devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is shipping a container of critically-important food, shelter, hygiene, and medical supplies to the island nation and will ensure fresh water, sanitation items, and shelter support for those on the ground through its partners the Afya Foundation and Catholic Relief Services. 

JDC will also provide life-saving equipment and supplies to the Israeli Defense Forces Field Hospital when it arrives in Philippines. JDC previously partnered with the field hospital in Haiti, Sri Lanka, and Japan. Additionally, JDC will be providing "School in a Box" kits for temporary classrooms for displaced children through its ongoing partnership with UNICEF. JDC's advance team of disaster relief and development experts, including a medical doctor and emergency field medic, is heading to the Philippines later this week to assess needs and work with its local/international partners and the Filipino Jewish community to ensure maximum impact for survivors.

"Even while we mourn the loss of so many lives, we are working around the clock to ensure that the Filipino people are cared for as quickly and responsibly as possible. There are serious challenges ahead in the short term, but our partnerships with the IDF Field Hospital, Afya Foundation, Catholic Relief Services, and UNICEF represent a strategic and high-impact solution to the overwhelming despair Filipinos face everyday," said JDC CEO Alan H. Gill.

Harrowing reports out of disaster zones detail hundreds of thousands of people left homeless, extreme supply shortages, and slow-moving rescue and recovery efforts. These efforts are even further complicated by the vast scale of the Philippines -- made up of thousands islands -- and the overwhelming medical, nutritional, and emotional needs of millions of people in the most-affected regions. JDC has therefore focused its immediate response on the organization of relief supplies and state-of-the-art medical care to address the growing crisis among storm survivors.

JDC's disaster relief programs are funded by special appeals of the Jewish Federations of North America and tens of thousands of individual donors to JDC. JDC coordinates its relief activities with the U.S. Department of State, USAID, Interaction, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Israeli relief agencies, and the United Nations.

JDC has provided immediate relief and long-term assistance to victims of natural and manmade disasters around the globe, including Haiti, Japan, and South Asia after the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and continues to operate programs designed to rebuild infrastructure and community life in disaster-stricken regions.

To Make a Contribution:

Online: www.jdc.org

By Phone: 212-687-6200

By Mail:

JDC Typhoon Haiyan Relief

P.O. Box 4124

New York, NY 10163

United States

Please make check payable to JDC Typhoon Haiyan Relief

About JDC

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is the world's leading  Jewish humanitarian assistance organization. JDC works in more than 70 countries and in Israel to alleviate hunger and hardship, rescue Jews in danger, create lasting connections to Jewish life, and provide immediate relief and long-term development support for victims of natural and man-made disasters. For more information, please visit www.jdc.org

Typhoon Haiyan and the Weight of Jewish History

There’s a lovely op-ed by Alan Gill, the Joint’s CEO (pasted below) in today’s JTA about our debt to the Philippines. It particularly moved me because it’s not just about the awful humanitarian tragedy there and our response, but also about our Jewish history … and our gratitude to the Filipino people.

Our relief efforts in the Philippines have already started. We’re working with Afya to bring in a container of much-needed food, shelter, hygiene and medical supplies.  We’ll also be working with Catholic Relief Services, one of JDC's longstanding partners in delivering emergency aid at times of disaster, to help support their emergency response which includes provision of WASH (water and sanitation items) and shelter support.

We’ll be updating further over the next few days.

I saw my colleague Danny Pins this evening here in Jerusalem – he’s about to leave to head up one of our teams there. You can read a bit about him in Alan’s op-ed below.

Danny is a Jewish hero. I’m proud to have him as a partner and friend in the Joint.

Op-Ed: In its time of need, repaying a debt to the Philippines

By Alan H. Gill

November 12, 2013 10:57am

NEW YORK (JTA) — As the extent of the catastrophic damage and tragic death toll continues to grow in the Philippines, a particularly heroic piece of history should be recalled by the global Jewish community, which owes a debt to the island nation.

Seven decades ago, a Philippine president, a globetrotting Jewish family named Frieder and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, my organization, helped save the lives of more than 1,000 Jews who otherwise would have almost certainly died in the Holocaust.

Thanks to their initiative, these refugees were issued rare travel certificates to the Asian country to work as skilled laborers in the Frieders’ cigar factories in Manila — though in reality, few of them had any experience in the industry whatsoever. The audacious operation, seemingly extraordinary today, is the subject of the recently released documentary “Rescue in the Philippines.”

At the time that Manuel Quezon admitted Jews to his country, the Filipino president made what seems today like a remarkably prescient statement.

“The people of the Philippines will have in the future every reason to be glad that when the time of need came, their country was willing to extend a welcome hand,” he was quoted as saying.

We recalled this moment in history last week when we began reading reports and watching coverage of the impending super typhoon Haiyan — the strongest storm in recorded history — as it barreled toward the Philippines. In anticipation of the impact, JDC’s disaster relief and development staff assembled a contingency plan that went into full effect once news emerged of the death and destruction wrought by Haiyan.

As part of our ongoing response to the typhoon, JDC will ship critically important food, shelter, and hygiene and medical supplies — as well as ensure the provision of water and sanitation items and shelter support — through its partners, the Afya Foundation and Catholic Relief Services. JDC’s advance team of disaster relief and development experts will head to the Philippines later this week to assess damage and needs while consulting with our local/international partners and the Filipino Jewish community to ensure maximum impact for storm survivors.

About 30 percent of funds raised will be dedicated to immediate relief for food, water, shelter, medical supplies and care, unless the emergency phase lasts longer because of expanding, critical needs among survivors. The rest will be invested in sustainable local projects that will emerge in the long, slow process of rehabilitation that is sure to come.
It’s a formula JDC, which is celebrating its centennial this year, has developed over decades of efforts in the field, from helping Ukrainians starved by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s to rehabilitating survivors of genocide in Rwanda. And on behalf of the North American Jewish community and with its support, we have over the past decade delivered tens of millions of dollars in aid to victims of natural and manmade disasters in Southeast Asia, Haiti and Japan.

These efforts now come full circle, especially for one member of our team arriving in the Philippines later this week, Danny Pins. In addition to being one of our development and employment experts, Pins’ mother and grandparents were among the German Jews who fled to the Philippines to seek safe haven in 1938. His posting, in many ways a homecoming despite previous trips to the country, is highly symbolic.

Today, in the wake of one of the worst storms in history, with perhaps more than 10,000 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless, we are fully committed to fulfilling President Quezon’s prophecy and returning the favor to the Filipino people. Not just because we are Jews, the heirs to this nation’s life-saving actions, but because we firmly believe in mutual responsibility and the idea that each individual life is valuable beyond measure.

(Alan H. Gill is the CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.)

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Typhoon Haiyan

In the aftermath of the destruction wrought by super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) has begun collecting funds for relief efforts. Responding to a quickly rising death toll and catastrophic destruction, JDC staff experts are consulting with local authorities, the Filipino Jewish community, and global partners to assess the unfolding situation on the ground and ensure survivors’ immediate needs are addressed. The typhoon, one of the strongest storms in recorded history, caused widespread damage to the island nation, especially the hardest-hit central city of Tacloban, and is barreling its way towards Vietnam.

 “Our heartfelt prayers go out to the Filipino people in the wake of yesterday’s deadly storm. We immediately activated our network of global partners and will leverage our previous experience in the region to provide immediate, strategic relief to survivors in their time of need,” said Alan H. Gill, JDC’s Chief Executive Officer. “These efforts are especially poignant for us given the Philippines’s life-saving actions during the Second World War when the country offered safe haven to more than 1,000 Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi onslaught. It is our privilege today to honor that historic debt.”

 As damage reports and casualty rates continue to grow, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos remain inaccessible, without power and shelter in the wake of Haiyan, called Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines. JDC has a history operating in the Philippines, previously helping to fight post-typhoon cholera through an Israeli partner in 2009 and working to enhance emerging Jewish community life through the inclusion of the Filipino Jewish community members in pan-Asian Jewish events. During the buildup to World War II, JDC ensured the emigration of more than 1,000 European Jews escaping Nazi persecution to the island nation. The story of European Jews who took refuge was the subject of “Rescue in the Philippines,” a recently released documentary. It followed the remarkable story of how one family – the Frieders – together with the JDC helped bring hundreds of European Jews to Manila, saving them from near certain tdeath in the Holocaust.

JDC’s disaster relief programs are funded by special appeals of the Jewish Federations of North America and tens of thousands of individual donors to JDC. JDC coordinates its relief activities with the U.S. Department of State, USAID, Interaction, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Israeli relief agencies, and the United Nations.

JDC has provided immediate relief and long-term assistance to victims of natural and manmade disasters around the globe, including Haiti, Japan, and South Asia after the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and continues to operate programs designed to rebuild infrastructure and community life in disaster-stricken regions.


CURRENT INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ACTIVITIES:

Contact has been made with the Jewish Community in the Philippines and we have offered JDC's assistance, and requested their advice and counsel, and offered to partner with the community in responding to the disaster.  The majority of the community is situated in Manila with a a small Jewish community in Cebu, and a few in Boracay.  The community reported that there are probably a few Jews that were in the direct path of the Typhoon but they are not aware of them. Hopefully they will be in contact and if need be assistance will be provided.

We are at the stage where everything is still very fluid - we don't know how much money will be collected and have available to allocate,  we are assessing the extent of the needs on the ground and are identifying US, Israeli and local partners. Within the next few days we will be sending a JDC assessment team comprised of emergency response professionals, well versed in disasters and in identifying potential partners.

Currently we are working on upcoming interventions with USAID, Catholic Relief Services, Afya, Heart to Heart, UNICEF, the Israeli Embassy in the Philippines, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) - Field Hospital, MDA, Mashav, and other international partners of JDC from our previous disaster relief efforts.  There are several local organizations that we are vetting for disaster response capacity, some that have been working with JDC's Center for International Migration and Integration (CIMI) so have a history of working with JDC.  We will work with multiple agencies depending on their capacity, access and track record with a priority for local agencies.

Our general rule is to provide one third of our funding (depending upon the amount of money we raise) to immediate relief - food, water, shelter, medical assistance and then our longer term focus is upon developing sustainable projects with vulnerable populations that have been impacted by the disaster.  Such programs can include infrastructure - the reconstruction of schools, hospitals, playgrounds that have been destroyed, and an additional set of programs that include training and capacity building through community development,  psychosocial/post trauma, education, where our focus is upon the most vulnerable populations, children, elderly, women and people with disabilities.  Wherever possible we prioritize working with local partners to build capacity and ensure sustainability.  Where appropriate we will use Israeli expertise and recognize the partnership, as well as utilize JDC's in-house expertise.

We will continue to send situational updates.