Hi everyone,

I has now been exactly one month since typhoon Odette hit the Philippines and our community in Siargao. A lot has happened since our last report, and it is time to update you all.

First of all, we are blessed to have you. We have received donations from the 4 corners of the world, relief goods from various Asian NGOs, individuals and governments, and this has greatly helped us in envisioning the future of our school and our community.

Relief goods have included food, water, solar lights, blankets, water filters, mosquito nets, towels, tents and medicine.

The magnitude of the damage made us realise that we had to go beyond our mission (the school). Since the community where all our students come from has been badly affected, it became clear that we had to concentrate our initial efforts in helping the community to stand on its feet again. The government and NGOs have done their part, taking care of the absolute emergency relief, and we have made sure that we helped them as much as possible on the rest.

Water

Because we are on the island, it took some time to get proper drinking water for everyone. Thanks to donations, we were able to install water filters from Waves for Water (www.wavesforwater.org) for our community (500 people). Each filter can filter up to one million gallons of water.

In the not too distant future (target max. 3 months), we are planning to purchase a high-capacity water filtration system that can be coupled with our current water pump system.

Food

Villagers have been receiving rice & canned food. However, vegetables & sources of proteins & vitamins have been missing, since all farms were wiped out and most fishing boats became unusable.

We sent a team on the mainland (Mindanao), who went as far as Davao to get some vegetables and dry fish that were trucked and shipped back to the island. We will be feeding the villagers who are lacking a balanced diet until the food supply situation gets better.

We also started germinating seeds in seedling trays to plant vegetables in our garden. Hopefully, the first veggies will come up in 40 days. In the meantime, we will continue to purchase vegetables on the mainland.

Health & medication

Very sadly Michael, a 5-year old child from the village, whose sister is one of our students, passed away last Sunday from severe pneumonia & severe dehydration. 3 of this family’s children had the same symptoms, but fortunately the other 2 survived.

By the time the family raised the alert on their kids’ condition, Michael’s condition was already extremely serious, and despite him being transported by ambulance boat to Surigao’s main hospital, he could not be saved.

Michael was buried this week in Surigao City. May this poor innocent boy rest in peace. Espoir has covered the cost of the funeral & parents' expenses, since they have very limited funds.

We immediately requested emergency medical assistance, and had the visit of a local doctor as well as army doctors who came to check the health condition of all kids. No major health hazard was detected.

Electricity

Since electricity will not be restored for another few months, we have given all villagers solar lights. We have also used our water pump solar system temporality as a charging station.

We are also looking at various providers of solar panel systems for the whole school, rather than buying a generator. This is still under investigation.

School reconstruction

Our builder has given us priority to rebuild our school buildings. The work will start next week, and is expected to last up to 3 months, as some construction materials need to come from Cebu or Davao.

Despite a higher construction cost, we have decided to re-build all of our new classrooms' roofs in reinforced concrete. The improved structures will be able to resist the strongest typhoons and allow villagers to find a safe refuge.

Most villagers have lost any income stream since the typhoon. We have committed to hire as many villagers as possible for the re-construction of our school buildings.

Village roofs

The construction of roofs for all villagers has slowly started. A chainsaw was found, and coconut trees were donated, allowing our villagers to start re-building the structures of their roofs.

Espoir has used some of its donation money to finance part of the roofs’ construction, and if donations exceed our needs, we will use all excess money to help rebuild the villager’s homes.

The houses’ structures are not strong enough to hold a concrete roof, and alternative roof structures are currently being studied by our structural engineer.

Budget

We have finally been able to assess the extent of the damage and put a budget on it. Apart from damaged buildings, we have lost most of our furniture, equipment, textbooks, school supplies, uniforms,….

The decision to re-build the roofs in reinforced concrete (70 cbm of concrete are required) has a big impact on our budget, but we believe this is the right & safe thing to do.

Our total budget now stands at USD 200,000. Since I am matching all donations, we need USD 100,000. Up to date, between all our donation initiatives from the Philippines, Hong Kong, France & more recently Japan, we have raised about USD 70,000. We need another USD 30,000, and hope donations will keep on coming until we reach our objective.

Sponsoring a child

Since the typhoon hit, we have had many requests from donors to sponsor a child. They understand the urgent need to support our community and our students in the long-term, and not just temporarily with a one-off payment.

Sponsoring a child costs USD 50/month and helps pay for all the school expenses (teachers’ salaries, food for students’ lunches, school uniforms, textbooks, school supplies).

If you are interested to know more, please contact us at: [email protected]

Thanks again for your amazing support so far ❤️

Nicolas Gontard

Founder of Espoir School of Life, Inc.