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Partners
Earth Council Geneva helping Phillipine victims
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EARTH COUNCIL GENEVA is helping to provide fresh water to needy people in the Philippines through our partner, IMC.
IMC has sent an Emergency Response Team, with medical staff and water and sanitation experts, to the remote island of Guiuan. They were met by hundreds of people waiting for food, water, and medical care. The devastation is extensive.
IMC doctors started treating patients as soon as they stepped off the airplane, treating people lining the tarmac waiting for assistance at the airport. They treated infected cuts and injuries caused by flying debris. The team is already reporting cases of diarrheal disease due to a lack of clean water, and expect to see an increase in dengue fever, tetanus and measles as well.
The team is making their way to villages on the island where no one has yet sent help, in order to tend to the sick and injured. They will drive as far as then can and then walk.
Syrian Refugee Camps to Receive Aid
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Earth Council Geneva has embarked on another venture with the International Medical Corps. There is a significant and urgent need to address some major water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) needs in informal tented settlements in the Bekaa and North of Lebanon. The influx of Syrian refugees (more than 70,000 registered per month, though many choose not to register with the United Nations) has put increasing pressure on these informal settlements and the people are facing numerous health concerns, specifically related to sanitation and hygiene issues. Intervention is urgently needed. Many of these tented settlements have received no support to date.
· In a tented settlement in Miniara in the north sewage has contaminated large areas of the community and the area has since been invaded by a large number of flies. The community has yet to receive any hygiene kits and many of the residents have lice and scabies. International Medical Corps is coordinating with WASH organizations to address the sewage issues.
· In Menieh there is a new tented settlement in the north (100 tents, 300 families), and there are approximately 300 cases of lice and scabies that have not received any medication to address these issues. As the settlement is new they have not received any aid. International Medical Corps has completed health education sessions and is coordinating with UNHCR to address sewage and latrine issues.
· In Dedeh, International Medical Corps health educators visited Al Waha shelter, which is new and has 140 families (935 people). They found 685 children under the age of 15, 250 elderly, and 17 pregnant women. There were 250 cases of scabies infections and it is believed that all residents have lice. International Medical Corps is providing health education and working with WASH actors to address infrastructure issues.
Based on this assessment and others like it from IMC health educators, it is estimated that there are 4,000 new cases of lice and scabies in one area of the north and another 2,000 cases in Baalbek. There is an urgent need to procure more lice and scabies medications as well as hygiene kits to help address these issues. All of these supplies (with ECG’s recent support) will now be provided to communities. First will come thorough explanations on how to use the medications and kits, as well as sessions addressing hygiene issues to prevent further infections. Other topics, including women and children’s health, breastfeeding, etc., will be explained as well. This should a tremendous benefit to the refugees in such dire trouble.
IMC Update 14/9
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The most recent letter from the IMC regarding its ongoing partnership with Earth Council Geneva:
IMC Update
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February 2013
Earth Council Geneva’s funding is supporting water and sanitation activities at three schools in South Lebanon. The photos here show the installed water filtration system at Al Sarafand School.
International Medical Corps looks forward to providing Earth Council Geneva with further updates as the project activities continue.
Rural Alaska Village Water Program in talks with IMC
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The director of the Rural Alaska Village Water Program is presently in discussion with International Medical Corps(IMC) staff, and the focus of these talks will be to create e-learning courses that can be made accessible to remote Alaskan villages. Currently, eight courses are offered through the State of Alaska, but attendance at these centrally-located courses is not always possible.
Travel to and from the communities is difficult, so having this material available online would increase its effectiveness, and enable more villagers to qualify for assistance and apply for state and federal funds.The situation in remote Alaskan villages is often similar to the difficulties faced by remote African communities, and the developing e-learning module will be tailored so that it can be used in schools and settlements in poor countries throughout the world.