Residents from the municipality of Catubig in Northern Samar listen as an ICRC field staff explains the relief distribution process and how beneficiary communities were selected.
Residents from the municipality of Catubig in Northern Samar listen as an ICRC field staff explains the relief distribution process and how beneficiary communities were selected.
Volunteers from each beneficiary community step up to help ICRC staff and PRC volunteers distribute the relief items.
Mobile device data collection is used for a faster and more accurate registration and distribution of relief items to the community.
A team of PRC volunteers collects basic information to register beneficiaries using mobile phones. The process takes up to 2 minutes to complete and is followed immediately by the distribution of relief items.
A resident from Lao-ang municipality happily traverses the rice fields with food items that could sustain a family of five members for one month.
Most families in Northern Samar depend on abaca and coconut farming for their livelihood - crops that would take at least a year to recover after being damaged by Typhoon Nona. Vegetable seeds that can be harvested in two months or so were distributed along basic food items to provide additional sources of food and income.
To help families while they try to recover livelihoods damaged by the typhoon, food items that include 50 kilograms of rice, 12 cans of sardines and a kit with seeds of 5 different vegetables were distributed.
Together with volunteers from the PRC, the ICRC distributed food items to more than 5,400 families from 32 villages in Northern Samar affected by Typhoon Nona.
When Typhoon Melor (local name: Nona) swept through parts of the Philippines in December 2015, many residents from remote villages in Northern Samar suffered from damaged crops and houses. With the Philippine Red Cross, the ICRC distributed relief items to more than 5,400 families in these areas that are also affected by cycles of armed conflict over the decades.