New Year, New Hope for Thousands of Displaced in Southern Philippin





Philippines –The New Year started on a hopeful note for hundreds of families made homeless by Typhoon Bopha which struck the southern Philippines’ island of Mindanao on 4th December last year.
On the last night of the old year, IOM teams arrived to start a distribution of family kits composed of cooking and kitchen utensils, bedding and flashlights, to 1,160 families in the worst-hit Compostela Valley and Agusan del Sur Provinces.
The families have been identified as the most vulnerable by IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix, DTM.
DTM is an Excel and Android-based tool developed by IOM to gather data on the conditions of displacement in evacuation centres to better inform and coordinate humanitarian responses. In the Philippines, the tool was rolled-out at the height of the Typhoon Ketsana response in 2009 and the floods in Central Mindanao in 2010.
We used the DTM within days of the disaster to survey 38 sites with a population of nearly 10,000 people on a weekly basis. When we prioritized the most vulnerable we found that breastfeeding women, new mothers and large families are at highest risk. They need water, supplementary feeding, better shelter and more latrines,” says Brian Kelly, IOM’s emergencies chief in Asia, speaking after a visit to the affected area.
At least 10,000 people have been displaced to temporary shelters since the disaster struck on 4 December, killing over 1,000 and leaving more than 200,000 houses damaged or destroyed.










  • Philippines





Photo by The Crusader/Venice Villo (5 Dec 2012)

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