Cambodia, A Forest School – Empowering the next generation

The Teacher

How do you boost the recovery of a country ravaged by conflict and the catastrophic policies of its former rulers, the ‘Khmer Rouge’?  How do you promote development without dependency?  One answer is to strengthen the educational development of the people; giving them tools to solve the problems they have inherited themselves.   In Cambodia the genocide of Pol Pot’s regime has resulted in a situation where 60% of the population is aged under 21 and one-third of the population still lives under the World Bank’s defined poverty line of earning less than US$1 a day.   Educational development can help set the tone for the future but, with scant resources for even day to day survival,  it is difficult for those below or near the poverty line to fund themselves.  Creative initiatives at the grassroots level help bridge the gap between rich and poor, giving everyone an opportunity to learn and raising the overall skill base in the society as a whole.

I had an opportunity to witness this first hand during one of my assignments to  illustrate the literacy and library development programme facilitated by OMF International in the Snuol area of Eastern Cambodia earlier this year.  Snuol is a district of Kratie province near the border with Vietnam. The population is around 45,000 mostly living in small villages spread out beyond the hub of the market town of the same name.  Rubber and peppers are the main crops, flourishing well in the rich red soil of the area.  A number of villages are linked together as part of a commune and the project involves setting up fixed libraries in the high schools and commune offices, providing mobile library services and facilitating literacy development in the outlying villages.  The librarians and the teachers in the literacy programme are all local folk.  Field workers act as facilitators and advisors, a job that involves a lot of motorcycle travel on dirt roads and the dedication to develop strong relationships with the people they serve.  They share the same daily inconveniences and most of the risks of disease that local folk do – during my day and a half travelling the scooter suffered three punctures.

What follows is a photo essay of a visit to one of the literacy programmes taking place in a forest clearing..the school near Snuol…

Getting to the school requires a journey along graded but unpaved roads

Eventually, after riding along a forest path we reach the simply constructed, two room school in a clearing.

The Class

Reading

Student Involvement

Attentive minds

Writing

Starting from scratch?

Technological advance.

A watchful eye

In discussion with Swiss Field worker Daniel Zwygart

Class almost over...

The teacher's house

Daniel and the Teacher commiserate with a neighbour whose house has just burned down. The teacher's wife watches from a distance.

A simple life

What price his future?

921 1:47 The ChiChi Earthquake 10 years on

Buildings collapsed all over the disaster area and as far away as Taipei

 At 01:47 am local time on September 21st 1999 an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter Scale pummeled central Taiwan.  The 12 Km deep epicentre near the picturesque town of ChiChi, 30 Km outside Taichung produceda force equivalent to scores of atomic bombs going off together.  Funneled along the numerous faultlines criss-crossing the island the quake and its aftershocks claimed over 2,400 lives made tens of thousands homeless and caused enormous financial loss.  This brief post timed to mark the 10th anniversary is meant as a memorial for those who died and a tribute to the vast numbers of people who willingly gave time, money and energy to help the survivors.

Every school in the quake zone collapsed. Mercifully the timing of the quake meant no-one was in class.

Three storey buildings became two storey buildings.

Many people sleeping on upper floors where able to escpe

Responding to Disaster – Phase III – Reconstruction

 

All that was left standing of an adobe house after the 1999 earthquake. Fortunately all the occupants survived and we were able to evacuate an 8 month pregnant wife (a Indonesian 'foreign bride') to Taichung to await delivery in safer surroundings.

The final stage of the post disaster recovery process is also the longest.  Reconstruction of  damaged infrastructure and houses takes years.  Usually temporary buildings and bridges can ease life and communication but it can take 3-5 years to replace the permanent structures. 

The rebuilding of lives and confidence also takes a long time.  And this is often overlooked.  It is relatively easy to provide tents and sleeping bags but far more complicated to restore a sense of home and ensure a good night’s sleep.  Emotional and psychological issues often remain hidden for some time.  For example there was a spate of suicides one year after the 1999 earthquake.  Most people’s attention and compassionate response to the disaster is focused on the first few weeks after it happens.  It naturally dwindles after that.  But for the victims the emotional payouts continue for some time after most of the support has moved on.  This is where the Churches were able to make an important contribution after the 1999 earthquake.  

Churches around the island took responsibility for different townships and provided counseling and support centres manned by paid staff and volunteers under the auspices of the Chinese Christian Relief Association (CCRA).  These operated for between 3 and 5 years at the end of which some became churches and others were able to hand over responsibility to existing churches in the area. 

The CCRA already has plans for shifting from the Relief phase to the Reconstruction phase which are detailed In English here.

 

I have been asked about ways (apart from prayer) to get involved and there are details in the link above about donations to the CCRA’s work.  World Vision is another organization that has been involved but their Taiwan website seems geared to local donors.  It may be possible to make donations through their Branches in the UK, USA or other countries, though I am not certain about that.

Responding to Disaster – Phase II – Relief

Collapsed school after 1999 ChiChi Earthquake. A tent city was set up on the playing field behind this building.

This article follows on from a previous one that you can find here and previous posts related to this one can also be found in the August archives

The rescue phase of disaster response continues until those who are in immediate danger are brought to places of relative safety.  Since the last post we were back in contact with my wife’s family to discover that they had neglected to inform us that they had been evacuated from their village because a landslide had resulted in an ‘artificial’ lake forming high up in the mountains.  There was a fear that this would suddenly burst causing flooding similar to that in Linbian further downstream near where they live but the danger has abated and they are now back in their home.  

The middle phase of the recovery process, which I term the relief phase, begins whilst the last parts of the rescue phase are still happening.  Survivors still have considerable and varied needs and it is often at this stage that volunteer organizations are able to lend a significant hand.  In this article I’ll look at some of the different ways church volunteers have been involved in this both after Typhoon Morakot, last month and the ChiChi earthquake 10 years ago this month.

Generally speaking during the relief phase people need places of refuge, supplies of food, water and clothing, various practical services, emotional and spiritual support and help to clear up.

 

Ian, one of my colleagues at Banner Church, helps coordinate operations during the clean-up in Linbian after Typhoon Morakot last month

After the earthquake there were serious aftershocks for over a week so people generally preferred to live outdoors and tent cities sprung up all over the place.  Tents and sleeping bags were needed for this, indeed the island ran out of tents.  There were tented communities in most parks and the playgrounds of the schools (almost all of which had suffered building collapse).  After the typhoon those whose homes had been destroyed or who had evacuated temporarily where housed in community halls, churches and temples.  Mainly these were folk who had been living in the mountains.  Some refugees then went to stay with relatives around the island.  On the plains where most of the damage was caused by flooding and mud many staid on, ‘camping out’ on the upper floors of their houses until the mud was cleared.

A tent city in a smaller elementary school

 

There were a number of ways churches got involved in this phase after both the earthquake and the typhoon.  My involvement after the earthquake was mainly taking relief supplies out to people in mountainous towns and villages.  Individuals and companies were quick to deliver donated supplies to relief supply centres that were set up.  My wife used her admirable organizing skills to help set up the church centre in Taichung.  Nearby the media also set up a centre and the two coordinated operations as different supplies were donated to each. 

The Taichung relief supply centre organised by churches after the 1999 earthquake. Four wheel drive vehicles set off from here with supplies for the mountains.

We would get a phone call from a town or village pastor saying what they needed and then we would fill up a 4 wheel drive mini-bus with these supplies and would then set out with two drivers for the long journey to the affected areas.  Sometimes we would need to go off road in order to get past rock slides, always watching out for further collapses as we went.  It was necessary to negotiate rocks the size of cars which had blocked half the road and a few hours after one journey an aftershock brought a 12 story building crashing down across the road I had travelled on.

"The Road Less Travelled." Getting supplies through after the earthquake required negotiating many obstacles

As well as delivering supplies churches helped out in other ways.  Some joined the tent cities to provide food and simple amenities as well as emotional and spiritual encouragement.  In one camp I found one group doing hair-cutting and massage for the elderly and another running a children’s programme.  One of the parents commented that it was the first time she had seen her child smile since the quake.

Church volunteers giving haircuts to and praying with victims of the 1999 earthquake in a tent city

A children's programme run by volunteers from Taiwan's churches in a tent city after the 1999 earthquake.

 

After the typhoon the Chinese Christan Relief Association assigned different churches to different areas.  My friend, Robb, with another church in Taichung went to the Evacuation point at Chishan that you may have seen on the TV news report.  This was where the helicopters brought survivors to.  They set up a stall there providing water and food and a listening ear to anyone who needed it.  This included some of the rescue teams as well. 

Banner church, as you will have seen from the posts below was one of several helping with the clean-up work from the floods in Linbian.  This has now made significant progress and many volunteer groups, including ours have been able to wind down their operations.  The army still maintains a presence there.

Temporary help points set up in the earthquake disaster zone by Taiwan's churches during relief operations, such as this one run by the Presbyterians, paved the way for Counselling and assistance centres set up during the Rebuilding phase.

Again there is a gradual change-over from the Relief to the Rebuilding phase which  will cover briefly in another article.

Movin’ Mud – Update

The clean up continues

The work to clear up Linbian continues.  Monday to Friday a couple of bus loads of volunteers depart from the Church at 6.30 a.m.  One busload from Banner Church and one from various churches which make up the Taichung Strategic Church Alliance of which we are a part.  The relationship amongst churches of various denominations and backgrounds in Taichung is strong and so a larger church, such as Banner, can easily lend logistic support to smaller churches.

Work has continued, house by house, and if you wondered about the importance of the soldiers clearing drains by hand that you’ve seen in earlier photographs, then this was emphasised on Monday when a torrential tropical thunderstorm (common at this time of year) backed up the drains and brought muddy water pouring back into houses that our teams had just finished clearing out.

Each night the teams return as we don’t want to put any further strain on already stretched resources in the area.

The work has to be tackled house by house

I’m embedding a video the Church made to encourage further volunteers.  The backing song, Taiwan, is by Joshua, a band based at Bread of Life Church in Taipei, where I used to work among students (I remember being on a short term ministry service team with the lead singer many years back).  It is used with their permission.  It’s all in Chinese but I’ll place a translation of the lyrics of the chorus below the video even though that won’t really do justice to their poetic power in Mandarin.   To watch the video full frame click on the four little arrows in the lower right corner.  Unless you have a lightning fast connection I recommend letting the video ‘download’ first and then play it through.  To do this click the start button (bottom left) and as soon as it becomes a pause button click again.  Wait for the bar to the right of it to fill up in gray and then click the start again.

Taiwan, I love you,

Hand in Hand, Without ethnic division,

We move forward together,

My heart is linked with you until eternity,

My land, Taiwan.

Movin’ Mud – The Clear-up in Linbian

Doing the Spadework

Clearing the township of Linbian of the mud and rubble that has inundated it and enabling life to return to a vestige of normality will be no mean feat.  Thousands of tons of dark grey mud have been deposited on the streets and in the houses of the town.  Drainage systems have been blocked as have many access roads.  In some places the mud is still a runny liquid, in other places as quagmire and then in yet other places it has solidified so that you can walk on it. And some of it has become dust.  Getting it out of Linbian is the challenge.

Trees left over from the now subsided torrents accumulate under the bridge over the Linbian River

 

Getting rid of the remaining water is the first step and this means sorting out the blocked up drainage systems. Soldiers doing this by hand.

Larger earthmovers can of course move a lot, piling it up for collection, but they are limited to where they can go. Ultimately, though, much of the job is basic spadework.

The basic house by house work is done manually.  Volunteers wear old clothes and Wellington boots. Because of the risk of infection they should not have any open cuts or wounds.  On their hands they wear thick rubber gloves underneath woven work gloves for maximum protection.  I found that working for just a few minutes in temperatures over 30°C meant that pools of sweat formed inside the gloves and skin wrinkled.

After the thicker mud has been removed by spades the remaining, more watery residue is pushed out into the street with large window squeegies.

And then high pressure jets of water are used to blast as much of the remaining mud away as possible.

 

Finally, individual items worth saving must be cleaned by hand.

Cleaning tools at the Bladesmith's - before

Cleaning tools at the Bladesmith's - during

Cleaning tools at the Bladesmith's - after (also note the wall)

In many back streets clearing the mud by spade allows the smaller machines in. Mud from within houses and yards can then be broken up, and tossed into the road for them to pick up and transport to...

…Large gravel trucks that are standing by to transport the mud away.

Typhoon Morakot – One Family’s Tale

Mr. & Mrs. Tsai watch as volunteers clear mud and rubble from their house

Like many folk in Linbian, the Tsai family members were taken by surprise by the flood waters that rapidly engulfed the town.  In a very brief period of time the ground floor of their home was inundated with turgid muddy water.  When their son tried to go out to get some emergency supplies he suddenly found himself up to his neck in water and the strong current of water flowing down the street caused him to beat a hasty retreat to the upper floors.

 

Clearing the mud from the Tsai's house

This matches my own experience with floods from two earlier ‘light’ typhoons in the South of the island.  The flood waters do not just build up gradually around you.  Rather, something gives somewhere and you are quickly overwhelmed as the water flows into the lower lying areas.  There is usually very little time to rescue your possessions. 

 

The Tsai's son found himself in up to his neck

 

In a few brief moments the Tsai’s car, motor scooters and ground floor furniture vanished under the torrents.  After the waters receded they left mud, initially quite liquid but eventually drying to a carpet 3-4 feet thick, denying entry to all the houses. On major streets heavy backhoe diggers could move in and begin clearing but in the narrow back alleys only spades would do.  Here our student teams were able to help out with the guys taking turns digging and the girls helping to clear the claggy mud that clung to spades.

 

Neighbours watch proceedings whilst camping out on their upper floors.

Mr. and Mrs. Tsai are staying with relatives in another town whilst their son camps out on the upper floor of the family home.  They had returned to watch the clear-up process.  Currently the government is planning to give each household a 30,000 New Taiwan Dollars compensation package.  This is around US$900 or ￡540.  It will of course take a lot more to replace what has been lost.  However, as I sat with them a while listening to their story I noticed them both smiling at some of the antics of the city students trying to dig out their belongings. A sense of humour bodes well for their long term emotional recovery.  And having folk accompany them even briefly on that journey brings the destination that little bit closer.

Losses from damage to vehicles are likely to be high.

Typhoon Morakot Relief Effort – Linbian

A church team of mainly high school and college students helps clear mud and rubble to allow families access to the ground floors of their homes. Note the level of mud, already hardened, on the right.

 When the flood waters that engulfed Linbian gradually receded they left behind mud which, under the sun, hardened to create a covering between knee and waist height deep both inside and outside buildings.  Clearing this is now the number one priority for the relief effort. I travelled down with one of the teams that have been leaving Taichung Banner Church daily this week.  The journey down was uneventful but communication problems on arrival meant that we had a frustrating 90 minute wait before some of the team could finally transfer from coaches to small minibuses for transport to Linbian.

Volunteers rest in shade

 From my experience during the 1999 earthquake, this sort of problem is not uncommon.  Without strong central control and communication, word gets round independently to lots of different groups about a need and they all react to it, meaning that some places get more help than is needed, whilst others are left with nothing.  After the quake I made a risky 4-5 hour drive in a 4 wheel drive along makeshift roads laid through river beds and around boulders and mudslides to deliver supplies to a village that had been cut off, only to find that other groups had also picked up the local Pastor’s SOS and delivered identical things. Ultimately most would not be wasted, but it was frustrating to know others could have used them. The same happened this time but with manpower rather than supplies.  However we were able to locate other areas of need and move on.

We had to leave the shuttle vehicles and make the final journey by foot.  As we travelled in we saw teams from the army and different civic organisations already at work.  The army had been working on clearing the roads and major infrastructure and were still doing that although they were also able to release smaller teams to help around private homes.  Otherwise this work was being done by civic volunteer organisations.  Church groups organised by the Chinese Christian Relief Association would be working to clear one house.  Next door there would be volunteers of the Buddhist Tsz-chi organisation and then just along from there folk from the Yi-Gwan Dau religion. 

 

Volunteer team members await transportation

 

We had over 60 folk so were assigned to three projects.  Some folk helped out in a convenience store.  The group I was with picked up where others had left off cleaning out the ground floor of a shop selling tools.  Round the corner from this in a small side street a team of students worked to try to clear a way for residents to get into the ground floors of their homes.  They also delivered supplies to those ‘camping out’ on their upper floors. 

Though there wasn’t the same level of tragedy here as there was in the mountain areas many people are still facing serious upheaval to their lives and welcome the help to get things cleaned up and re-organised.  What we were able to contribute may only have been ‘moving mud’ but if it could help a family get their life back on track a little earlier it was worth it.  More from our Linbian experience later but, for now, I’ll  leave you with a few more images from the day .

Having mostly cleared the road, soldiers work on the drainage system.

Most vehicles were written off

A few cars might be salvageable

Some images originally in this post have been moved to a later post entitled Movin’ Mud

Mud, Mud, Inglorious Mud…

The Township of Linbian yesterday, 11 days after the typhoon

(With apologies to Flanders and Swann)

Linbian is a largish township in Pingdung County.  The extraordinary rainfall during Typhoon Morakot caused water levels in the Linbian river to rise to a point where the restraining dyke failed and the town was rapidly engulfed in water several feet deep.

Yesterday I spent the day with a team of folk from Banner Church in Taichung who travelled down to help out with the recovery process.  I heave been so busy catching up since then that I will have to wait to post a more detailed report but I thought I would at least put up this photo of one of the side streets still with mud up to and in some cases over window height.  This is the sediment left over after the waters receded.  More reports to follow.

Responding to Disaster – Phase I – Rescue

I’m going to pick up from my earlier post and focus on the response to disasters and the long term process of recovery.  I’ll particularly be highlighting the involvement of churches and Christian organizations as these are what I am most familiar with.  There are, of course, many other groups and individuals involved including the armed forces, special rescue teams, emergency services, civic organizations and national and local government.  In the most serious cases such as Typhoon Morakot and the Chichi earthquake international governments and NGOs offer and provide additional support.

Rescuing people trapped in collapsed buildings or cut off by mudslides is an immediate priority. (A building destroyed by the 1999 earthquake).

 

The 3 main phases of recovery are Rescue, Relief and Rebuilding whilst a fourth phase, which I will term Reflection, is the gleaning of lessons to be learned and the making and implementation of plans to prevent, reduce the impact of and respond better to future disasters.  Each of the phases overlaps the next one, as for example relief work begins whilst rescue is still going on and itself gradually segues into the rebuilding phase.

Rescue is obviously the most urgent issue to be addressed.  During the 921 earthquake specialized rescue teams, experienced in extracting survivors from collapsed buildings, converged from all corners of the globe to join fire service and army engineers in getting people out of collapsed buildings. Armed forces helicopters and ambulances ferried the injured to hospital, army and civil construction engineers re-opened blocked roads and replaced or repaired damaged bridges – enabling survivors out and rescue and relief workers into the affected areas.  Police, both civil and military, helped to direct traffic.  Medical Centres such as Puli Christian Hospital, itself severely damaged by the quake, worked hard to treat the injured. Individual Christians were involved wherever they saw opportunities.  For example some of our German speaking colleagues in OMF International provided German/Chinese translation to help the co-ordination between local fire service and German speaking rescue teams.  At times this was very traumatic, as they were present when bodies were recovered.  One of the members of our church is a Rescue Helicopter pilot and has been very closely involved in the rescue operations after Typhoon Morakot. Sadly, some of his team mates died when their chopper crashed in bad weather during the rescue operation. On the whole, the Rescue phase requires special skills and equipment that are not usually available for Churches.  Their contribution tends to come more into its own during the Relief and Rebuilding Phases.  I hope to comment more on these in later posts. 

Damage to a hospital in ChuShan township during the ChiChi earthquake in 1999

Currently, Banner Church (where we minister), is sending teams daily to a region of PingTung county severely affected by flooding to help with the clean up and relief operation.  I hope to join one of these teams tomorrow.  So it will be Thursday before I expect to be able to post again.