Providing Emergency Assistance in the Aftermath of Fire

The months of April and May were especially tough this year for those living in two poverty struck communities in Manila. Disaster struck in the form of fire for those living in parts of Ermita and Isla Puting Bato, leaving more than thousand families without shelter.

a. Fire in Ermita, Manila – Emergency Packages

On April 17th 2012, a fire broke out in a residential building for the poor in one of the side streets in Ermita, Manila. The fire was allegedly started when two children were playing with matches, and the building, along with the neighbouring one, quickly became completely covered in flames. Due to the difficult location of the buildings, the fire department spent more than 2 hours getting control of the fire. By that time, over one hundred families had lost their homes.

Luckily no lives were lost in the fire, but it left 117 families (later increased to 130 as not all families were permanently staying in the buildings and were thus not in the area for registration in the immediate aftermath of the fire) without a place to live. Many had not been able to bring any belongings with them and had only the clothes they were wearing remaining.

Several of the organization’s scholars lived in one of the fire-struck buildings, in addition to one of the full-time volunteers. The day of the fire two AMV-volunteers conducted research among the victims to get an overview of the most urged necessities. As per conducted field work, the top requests among the fire victims were food, hygiene items, and something to sleep on.

Through announcements in social media, private individuals were invited to donate packages. This contributed to the donation of in total 117 donated packages from private persons and employees from an Arendal based recruitment agency .

Emergency Package Contents
1 banig (sleeping matt)
1 face towel
1 soap bar
12 noodles
5 kg rice

Additional organizations and government offices were providing feeding, temporary tent shelter, and clothing donations.

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b. Fire in Isla Puting Bato, Manila – Emergency Packages

In northern parts of the city of Manila lies the depressed area of Isla Puting Bato – a residential area for thousands of poor families. It’s notorious for high crime rates and extreme poverty, and the majority of the inhabitants reside in Spartan self-built houses. Most of these are made of wood, and at least once per year there is a small fire in the community.

On May 11th at around 4 pm a fire struck the entrance of the slum area. It spread quickly, and forced people to flee further into the slum. Fortunately very few people were injured or lost their lives, but thousands of families did lose their homes and everything they owned in the fire that blast for more than 6 hours.

As several organizations and government offices were involved in providing assistance to the fire victims, AMV focused on supporting the six scholarship families of the organization that also were victims of the fire. They received emergency packages that were especially useful in the immediate aftermath of the fire when the families were residing in emergency shelters.

Assistance provided by AMV:
2 banig (sleeping matt)
2 blankets
2 pillows
1 bathing towel
5 children’s t-shirts
5 children’s shorts
2 adult t-shirts
2 adult shorts
1 tent canvas (8ft x 8ft)
1 soap bar
5 kg rice
20 noodles

Click here to view more photos.

c. Fire in Isla Puting Bato, Manila – Rebuilding of Homes

In the aftermath of the fire that struck Isla Puting Bato on May 11th, most families were given the chance to re-allocate to another city. As of June 1, one hundred families had been re-allocated to the area of Rizal outside of Manila. The government made a commitment to provide housing to all the affected families, but although it would mean improved living standards to many, several families worry about the lack of income if moving to a distant location.

Some wished to remain in their past residential area, and three of the scholarship families of A Million Voices were among these. In order to ensure that the families would still have a home to call their own materials were provided for the rebuilding of the homes of the three families.

Assistance provided by AMV:

Building materials
* Hard wood
* Ply wood – various sizes
* Nails