Adopt-a-Fisherman 2013
Typhoon Yolanda hit the Philippines in November of 2013. Thousands of people dead or missing, tens of thousands displaced, hundreds of thousands suddenly in dire situations as the ticking of the clock brought them ever closer to a literal deadline. Out of this chaos, I was able to witness some of the best characteristics in people that I had ever seen in my entire life.
My mom and I were not in the country when the typhoon struck. We had gone on a trip for my mom's birthday. We came home earlier than planned as we had found out that not only was the Eastern Visayas badly damaged, as was being constantly reported on in the news, but our home province of Iloilo, specifically the Northern region, was also severely crippled.
Upon returning to the Philippines, we immediately flew to Iloilo to see Governor Arthur Defensor and the Provincial Administrator Raul Banias, to ask them how the 1Meal Program could be of assistance. They explained to us that 15,000 boats were destroyed in the island municipalities of Concepcion, Estancia, and Carles (the northern part of the island of Panay). This left the islanders very little time for survival. For without their boats they lost the ability to gather their main source of food.
The 1Meal Program Core group decided to visit the islands with an initial donation of food items and special water filters, sent over from New York, by my alma mater, Manhattan College. The filters solved one of the problems the communities had. Fresh water would now be accessible to them. The islanders set up drinking stations and assigned people to fill the containers for filtration but they still had the overwhelming problem of a depleting food source looming over them. Just as Governor Defensor had said, the people informed us of their need for boats. Telling us that even without houses, just as long as they have boats they would recover. So mom and the whole 1Meal Core Group got to work on the Adopt-a-Fisherman Project. A program where we invited people to donate Php15,000.00 to build a boat for a family in one of the islands, in return, the fisherman would paint the name chosen by the donor on their respective boat.
Through the generosity of friends and family, the 1Meal Program was able to collect money to build 9,000 boats!
I could spend hours telling you the stories of the wonderful people we encountered during this trying time, but I will save them for another day, as I feel they deserve a post of their own.
Although we can look back on it now and smile at the triumphs and laugh at the shortcomings, at the time, it was the largest problem the 1Meal Core group had faced: coordinating for 9,000 families the construction and distribution of motorized pump boats was no easy task. But this has been, thus far, the most beautiful, eye-opening experience we had ever encountered as a team. If it was not for the strong and dedicated members of the 1Meal Core Group then this project would have definitely been a failure of epic proportions.
A year after the storm, we revisited the islands, in order to assess the number of boats still active, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that all the boats donated were still in working order! I feel there is no better measure of success than to see the fishermen still using these donated boats. These fishermen understood the importance of asking for the motorized pump boat instead of a fleeting donation of food, clothes, or money. They focused their efforts on becoming sustainable. Maybe, when we are at our most vulnerable, that is when things are clearest. For the fishermen of the islands of Northern Iloilo, after the storm hit, what is essential in this life, though invisible, became perceivable. And through the assistance of the donors who also experienced their own sense of clarity, empathatically, they reached out and helped make the life of a stranger better.
