TACLOBAN CITY, Sept 7 (PNA) -– A total of 86 families staying in tents and makeshift houses of Costa Brava village in San Jose district this city will be accommodated in a temporary shelter in Tagpuro village.
The site is developed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in collaboration with Operation Blessing, All Hands Volunteers, Samaritan’s Purse, the City Government and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
It is located in the northern part of the city, one of the several areas identified by the local government for communities currently living in high risk coastal areas.
It is also the first in the Yolanda-hit areas to be constructed by IOM. Additional sites are still being developed in coordination with the local government of Tacloban, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery (OPARR).
The movement to the new transitional site is in response to the need to provide those still living in tents and makeshift shelters with safer and more secure temporary shelter – especially with this year’s typhoon season now underway.
Earlier this week, DSWD and IOM entered into a Memorandum of Agreement aimed at providing transitional shelter to a further 3,200 families affected by typhoon Yolanda in Eastern Visayas.
Of the 86 families living in the Yolanda worst hit area, 42 were already transferred and the remaining families will be moving next week.
Josefina Jackson, 67, is glad to have moved out from the tent city where she has since been living. Her family is one of the first 42 to be transferred.
“It is cooler now. It was very hot in the tents and there was lack of security,” Josefina Jackson says.
She expressed her gratitude to IOM, the local government and DSWD for the temporary shelter made out of amakan (bamboo) and nipa (palm leaf) roofing, where she can now finally have a comfortable sleep.
“This may be temporary, but we are more secure here and we now have the luxury of sleeping comfortably, which we didn’t have for the last nine months),” she said. (PNA)