Rushing Relief to Earthquake Survivors in Peru

October 11, 2007 — 2:28 pm PST
A home, albeit temporary

A Mercy Corps-funded shelter in Torre Molina, District of El Carmen, Province of Chincha.

These children belong to one of 86 earthquake-affected families in the El Carmen district whose temporary shelters were funded by Mercy Corps.

The shelters are built from heavy beige canvas and eucalyptus poles; heavy plastic roofing material is sewn onto the canvas. Soluciones Practicas is our partner on the project.

Mercy Corps is also funding water cisterns and purification tabs for each family, and school-supplies kits (backpack, notebooks, pens, pencils, crayons) for the kids.

Help speed relief to affected families and lay the groundwork for recovery.

October 9, 2007 — 8:55 am PST
Intel workers raise money for schools

A group of Intel's youngest employees is raising money to help Mercy Corps rebuild schools in earthquake-damaged Peru.

Leading the effort is Tavish Ledesma, a 24-year-old software engineer who chairs the company's Recent College Graduate group. He hopes the group raises at least $70,000 in the coming months — enough to replace or rehabilitate two schools destroyed by the August tremblor.

"We wanted to raise money for something that was going to have a big impact, that our employees could relate to," Ledesma says, "and education is something Intel really likes to focus on and something we could get our employees excited about."

The group hopes to jump-start fundraising by using Intel's United Way Giving Campaign as a springboard. Each October, the Hillsboro, Oregon-based chipmaker encourages employees to donate to their charity of their choice, which it will match with a gift to the local United Way.

Ledesma arranged for a half-page flyer urging donations to the Mercy Corps project to be included in yesterday morning's "chair drop," which places campaign materials on the office chairs of all 16,000 Oregon employees.

Intel employees have contributed generously to Mercy Corps efforts in the past, most notably in the wake of 2004's Indian Ocean tsunami. Ledesma says the group chose Mercy Corps because of its local presence, commendable financial husbandry and name recognition among employees. (It's certainly a household name for Ledesma, whose older sister works on the agency's civil-society team in Cambridge, Mass.)

About a dozen members of the Recent College Graduates group got an idea of what their dollars could do at a recent on-site presentation by Dr. Carlos Cardenas, who led Mercy Corps' initial emergency response effort in Peru. "We want to build that emotional attachment with the effort and have informed ambassadors," Ledesma explains.

In the coming weeks, he and his colleagues will be putting up posters on Intel's campus, sending out email solicitations to colleagues and speaking at staff meetings about the project.

Help speed relief to affected families and lay the groundwork for recovery.

September 20, 2007 — 1:26 pm PST
Temporary Shelter Going Up

Mercy Corps is working with colleague agency Soluciones Practicas to provide emergency shelter and related assistance for 86 families in Torre Molino and Tejada — two villages near the earthquake's epicenter that have received little aid.

Most of the homes in that region (the district of El Carmen) are made of adobe and suffered damage in the earthquake. The 86 families are those whose homes were totally destroyed, and who've been living in parks and public squares since the tremblor.

The families will receive temporary-shelter materials, water storage kits and tools to help them repair their homes and public infrastructure. In addition, 150 children will receive a backpack full of school supplies to replace what they've lost in the quake.

Soluciones Practicas, also known as Practical Action or ITDG, is an international humanitarian organization focusing on equipping the poor with the technological tools they need to improve their lives. Its Latin America regional office is in Lima, which became the group's first office outside Europe when it opened in 1985.

Help speed relief to affected families and lay the groundwork for recovery.

September 10, 2007 — 2:44 pm PST

Iraida Izaguirre

New Staff Heads Up Next Phase of Relief and Recovery

On Sunday, two new staff members took the reins of our response in Peru: Andrea Burniske, who becomes Mercy Corps' country representative, and Iraida Izaguirre, who will serve as emergency program officer.

Andrea is a longtime humanitarian worker with extensive experience in Russia and the post-Soviet republics, most recently as a consultant for UNICEF and Medical Teams International. Previously she spent two years living in Peru.

Iraida is on loan from our program staff in Guatemala. She brings more than five years experience in all aspects of financial, administrative and logistics management.

August 31, 2007 — 9:12 am PST
Families in Hoja Redonda Receive Food Aid

On Wednesday afternoon, approximately 550 families in Hoja Redonda received bags of salt, sugar, pasta, canned tuna, oats, tea, cooking oil and other foods intended to last for nearly a week.

Photo: Brian Atkinson/Mercy Corps

The distribution went off without a hitch, with neighborhood leaders coordinating the deliveries.

Brian reported that about 60-70 percent of the buildings in town were destroyed. "Generally you see the facades intact, but when you go in, you see that the roofs have caved in and the walls, which are mostly adobe, are cracked and unsound," he said. "People have set up plastic sheets in the central park and the soccer stadium adjacent to the town."

The other 350 food bags — assembled Tuesday by students at the American School of Lima — were left at a warehouse-turned-relief depot outside Chincha that's being overseen by community officials.

Carlos returned to the U.S. this morning; Brian is staying on to direct Mercy Corps' response for now, and plans to survey remote villages with our partners from Soluciones Practicas on Sunday. Rebuilding schools remains on the agenda.

Help speed relief to affected families and lay the groundwork for recovery.

August 28, 2007 — 3:20 pm PST
Lima students pack food for homeless families along coast

Students from the American School of Lima are packing about 900 boxes of staple foods to deliver tomorrow to the village of Hoja Redonda. Each box will be stocked with enough salt, sugar, pasta, canned tuna, oats, tea, cooking oil and other foods to last a family of four or five for nearly a week.

Volunteers from the American School of Lima stock food bags on Tuesday. Photo: Brian Atkinson/Mercy Corps

Carlos was on the phone to Mercy Corps officials in Portland as more than two dozen students formed an assembly line at the school. Hoja Redonda, located about 150 miles south of Lima on the earthquake-rattled coast, is in particularly bad straits, he said. It's nearly a half-hour drive from the main road, and when he visited last week, many families were sleeping under makeshift tents in the main square.

Carlos also reported that Mercy Corps is looking to rebuild at least two schools in the hard-hit district of Sunampe.

Help speed relief to affected families and lay the groundwork for recovery.

August 27, 2007 — 10:54 am PST
Village schools badly damaged in quake

Carlos is surveying damage to schools to get a sense of what Mercy Corps can do to help. His photos of schools in San Pedro, Sunampe and San Clemente indicate the degree of destruction caused by the quake. Buildings made from adobe suffered the most, but bricks-and-mortar structures were not spared. (The clock shows the time of the quake; the batteries must have come loose when it hit.)

Help speed relief to affected families and lay the groundwork for recovery.

August 27, 2007 — 10:23 am PST
Second staffer heads to earthquake zone

A second Mercy Corps staff member heads to Peru this morning: Brian Atkinson, program officer on our Latin America desk in Portland.

Brian is an experienced Latin America hand. A former Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras, he has worked as a consultant, project coordinator, human rights researcher, and technical specialist throughout the region. He joined Mercy Corps last November after two years working as an advisor with a peace-building program in Bogotá, Colombia.

In Peru, Brian will help coordinate logistics for the planned distribution of food kits and work on plans to help schools badly damaged in the quake.

Brian is traveling to Peru on a ticket courtesy of Portland-based Azumano Travel.

August 24, 2007 — 3:35 pm PST
Water tablets, medicine distributed; attention turns to battered schools

By the end of today we will have distributed to hospitals and tent camps all of the 500,000 aquatabs, 100,000 doses of antibiotics, and filtration systems donated from the David McAntony Gibson Foundation. Thanks to Partners of the Americas, Global Medic and Golder Associates for their help.

Carlos is visiting schools badly damaged by the quake today and tomorrow in a first step toward putting together a plan to help rebuild them.

August 24, 2007 — 12:48 pm PST
Portland's Andina restaurant to donate portion of Sept. 2 dinners

The Platt-Rodriguez family will donate 10 percent of net dinner sales at Andina, named 2005 Restaurant of the Year by the Oregonian, on Sunday, Sept. 2 to Mercy Corps' Peru Earthquake response.

"We are concerned about the well being of all the people who live and work in Peru, especially the regions of Pisco and Chinca, which were devastated by the earthquake," said Peter Platt, son of Doris Rodriguez de Platt, who owns Andina with her family. "This benefit is our way to do what we can to help others in our native country."

August 21, 2007 — 12:17 pm PST
We're targeting 'neglected' communities, Partners director says

This morning we spoke to Rodolfo Salinas, the volunteer executive director of Partners of the America's Peru chapter, from his home in Lima. In between taking calls on his cell phone from Partners' Washington office and officials in earthquake-affected areas, he talked about the current response:

Tell me a little about the Partners volunteer network there.
The strength of Partners in Peru is in our people. Most of us reside in the capital city, Lima, but have the capacity for reach out to the rest of the country through institutions such as CEDRO, a drug abuse and prevention nonprofit with activities in the south.

And you've got extensive contacts from your own work experience?
Yes, I was director of the Ica region for the Ministry of Housing, and spent 15 years working with USAID managing housing and all kinds of other projects.

Is there still a sense in Peru that the earthquake response is insufficient?
Yes. Unfortunately, the key needs of water provision and food provision have not been adequately supported.

We've chosen to focus on two hard-hit communities, El Carmen and Tambo de Mora. Why those?
El Carmen and Tambo de Mora have been highly damaged, and like other rural villages, they've been neglected in the response. Most people in the rural areas live in small houses built with adobe; 70 percent of those houses have collapsed. In addition, these are Afro-Peruvian communities — El Carmen in particular is well-known for its rich folklore and annual Afro-Peruvian dance festival — and they're located in a very poor area.

August 20, 2007 — 2:37 pm PST
Water-purifying tablets, systems on their way to affected areas

Photo: Courtesy of Medentech

A shipment of water-purification tablets, antibiotics and portable water-purification systems carried by a trio of emergency responders is on its way to Peru's earthquake region.

Mercy Corps' Portland-based Material Aid team solicited the donation from Global Medic, the operational arm of the Canadian charity David McAntony Gibson Foundation.

Global Medic operates a "Rapid Response Team" staffed by police officers, firefighters, and paramedics and other volunteers, and deployed to more than 20 international disasters over the last four years. Mercy Corps has been the conduit for shipments to Lebanon during last summer's Hezbollah-Israeli conflict and to Kenya during an influx of Somali refugees last December.

A three-person advance team is due into Peru's capital, Lima, tonight with pallets of water-purification tablets, antibiotics, and other medicines, and $30,000 worth of portable water-purifying systems. They'll be distributed with the help of Partners in the Americas, which is working as Mercy Corps' on-the-ground partner during the response. Partners' extensive volunteer network will help Mercy Corps funnel aid to the most affected villages.

August 20, 2007 — 11:15 am PST
Veteran aid worker Carlos Cardenas heads to Peru

Dr. Carlos Cardenas, director of Mercy Corps Health Programs, is headed to Lima tomorrow from his home in Atlanta to help assess emergency needs and support efforts by Mercy Corps' colleague agency, Partners of the Americas.

In addition to being a native of Peru, Cardenas served five years directing programs there for CARE prior to joining Mercy Corps in April 2005. He oversaw more than 240 staff and $25 million worth of programs in water and sanitation, microcredit, the environment and other fields. He's also worked for two other international health-related nonprofits in Peru.

In short, he's intimately familiar with the country and the relief-and-development landscape there.

Cardenas is a trained obstetrician who started his medical career in the hospital emergency rooms of his native Peru. Read more about Cardenas.

August 17, 2007 — 12:20 pm PST
Rushing Relief to Earthquake Survivors in Peru

As relief teams rush to reach survivors in earthquake-stricken coastal areas of Peru, Mercy Corps is joining with Partners of the Americas to meet the urgent needs of affected families.

Photo: Photo: REUTERS/Mariana Bazo (PERU)

Right now, Partners emergency workers are on the ground in Peru assessing needs for shelter materials, water purification tablets, tents, tools, first-aid kits and other humanitarian items needed for families trying to recover from the largest earthquake to hit their country in decades.

Your help is needed to rush much-needed relief to families whose homes have been destroyed and lives upended by the quake.

At least 510 people have been confirmed dead and 1,000 wounded since a massive 7.9-magnitude quake struck south of Peru's capital, Lima, on Wednesday evening. An estimated 34,000 homes have been destroyed and up to 80,000 persons directly affected by the disaster, according to government and news reports.

Mercy Corps has worked in Latin America for more than 20 years, and currently operates relief-and-development programs in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Colombia. The agency shipped critical humanitarian aid supplies to the region after Hurricane Stan in 2005 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Recognizing the immense needs resulting from the quake, Mercy Corps' Global Emergency Operations team selected an experienced local partner to help speed resources to affected families. Mercy Corps has shipped emergency relief there in the past, including in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in June 2001.

Experienced aid workers on Mercy Corps' Latin America team, along with Carlos Cardenas, Mercy Corps' director of health programs and a native of Peru, chose Partners of the Americas because of their excellent reputation and extensive volunteer network in the region. Founded in 1964, Partners is the largest volunteer-based organization in the Western Hemisphere engaged in social, economic and cultural development.

In the days ahead, we'll be collaborating to determine how best to support the longer-term recovery of communities hardest hit by the quake, many of which were impoverished communities along Peru's Pacific coast.