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Charlie Beauchamp-Ward my son is a construction worker specializing in carpentry - just what they need in Tacloban, the Philippines city devastated and flattened by Hurricane Haelan in November. He travelled there on 28th February 2014 as an unpaid volunteer to help in reconstructing homes, and to teach local people how to do it.
You know the saying: "Give people fish and you feed them for a day; teach people to fish and you feed them for a lifetime".
At vast expense, he paid for his flight from London and also over £600 for the various essential vaccinations to protect from cholera, typhoid, rabies, hepatitis, and other things. He paid in advance for food and accommodation through Kaya Responsible Travel, a volunteer organization.
Charlie has thrown everything he could into this project, so far about £4,000, working very long hours, 7 days a week, before he left London, to raise money.
For his project, he also needed to buy expensive tools and equipment including a power generator so that he can use power tools, which are much faster and more efficient than hand tools when doing intensive construction work. He will leave all these tools over there as a gift to the Tacloban community when he returns home. He has bought a second power generator which he has given to local people and this has enabled them to keep their shop open until 10.00 pm instead of closing at 4.0pm. This has helped them a lot.
I've been in touch with him, and he is working halfway up a mountain, erecting temporary accommodation. He is managing a team of about 15 volunteers and some local people and, since acquiring a circular saw, he has organized work so that they all come to him with the measurements of the wood they need, and he saws it to the required length at great speed. Everyone is amazed at how much quicker it is than hand-sawing, and it has enabled them all to work much faster as a team. In two weeks they have already erected several temporary homes, but they desperately need more tools which cannot be obtained there.
He has asked us to start looking into sourcing and funding good quality tools to send to Tacloban so that he can distribute them to the hurricane victims to help them rebuild their communities
He would also like to give a little money to a few local families to help them to pay for necessities. He says the food being distributed to them is often of apalling quality, with cockroaches running round the rice, and - his words - food you wouldn't give a dog.
When we wake up in our nice warm beds with electric lights and a roof over our heads, we can all be grateful we are not in one of the disaster areas around the world. Imagine what it's like without electricity except a couple of hours a day, and mostly without internet and Wi-Fi connections, and no income because most of the businesses have been destroyed, and no proper shelter because your home was swept away.
Our family and friends are all very proud of his efforts, and we would be very grateful for any contribution you would care to make. He wants to give as much as possible to help the people of Tacloban. Any small amount would help and it can be in dollars or pounds sterling.
When he comes back, we'll have lots of photographs to show you, and I'll do a webpage about his experiences in Tacloban.
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