Late February, 2005

Donate for Tsunami Disaster Relief Now

CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REPORT
TSUNAMI UPDATE

WER’s global family is continuing its carefully focused effort to help children, families and their communities in the ongoing, massive worldwide outreach to tsunami victims throughout Asia.

Overall, our global offices have raised at least $16,300,000 USD in aid, and already allocated over $12,400,000. Most of the balance is in our supply lines, committed and awaiting timely shipment. Read more about these shipment details.

Here are some of the questions we are being asked.

Here are three of several factors we must consider:

• Needs are changing almost daily. For example, water in several regions has been supplied by U.S. military deployed to the region. Now they are pulling back for their regular assignments and taking their equipment with them for use elsewhere. Thus, more bottled water will soon be needed.
• We always coordinate delivery of our supplies to local needs. We are holding back some supplies which our partners in the region don’t expect to need for several weeks or months into the future. If we ship too soon, our supplies risk being exposed to theft, vandalism and other dangers.
• We insist on accountability for all our resources. Because some local governments are “taking control” of supplies sent into their region, we won’t ship our commodities until delivery to consignees we trust, can be assured.

Have you spent all your cash?

We still have some of it in our accounts, but almost every tsunami-dedicated cash gift has already been spent or is specifically committed over the next three months.

How are you using volunteers?

At first we hesitated to send people, based on assumptions that too many people, whether trained or untrained, “helping” in the region could generate bottlenecks and frustrations. Our strategy proved right, many other agencies now regret sending personnel too soon, especially since impacted areas had well-trained personnel available from unaffected regions in their own countries.

Our Hong Kong office has a ten-person team in Sri Lanka this week, led by our Operations Director there, Alison Tam. Their focus is traumatized children, and using art therapy to help them recover and get on with their young lives.

Meanwhile, our U.S. Director of Operations (Rob Enfield) is in Thailand and Sri Lanka, meeting with our local partners to plan upcoming volunteer, commodity and cash needs. Rob’s other goal is to help launch our exclusive “embraceable communities” strategy.

What commodities have you sent?

A table of commodities, by type, destination country, and sponsoring WER
office, appears at the end of this report. Please scroll down for details, which are as yet unaudited and, therefore, our best estimates of value, etc.

What’s your biggest surprise to date about the tsunami and its aftermath?

Thankfully, most of the anticipated epidemics (typhoid, cholera, malaria, etc.) failed to materialize. Fast work by local authorities and international agencies helped delay, and hopefully totally prevent, a disaster expected to equal in tragedy the tsunami itself.

Other agencies have stopped accepting donations. Has WER also stopped accepting donations?

We commend the transparency of other agencies, especially those who received massive public support thanks to major advertising campaigns (i.e., former Presidents Bush and Clinton in the U.S., and “DEC Appeal” across the U.K.). WER has not sought that broad limelight; our projects are smaller and far more personal to the children and families we want to reach. We are still accepting donations, and if our goals are exceeded, we will stop accepting tsunami-specific gifts.

You’ve spent a lot of money already. How have you used our gifts?

Getting commodities to the right tsunami victims continues to be our greatest, and most obvious, expense. When our figures are independently audited, we will report precisely how much was spent on commodities and other activities. At this point, donations are still coming in and new expenses are arising; it is far too early to give an accurate report of our overall activities for the tsunami.

We’re also giving grants to local agencies for strengthening their own outreaches to the victims. We are soliciting proposals from reliable organizations in the region, especially to fund activities WER already embraces, including hunger and disaster relief, plus fighting the sexual exploitation of children.

WER warned about sexual exploitation early on. Were you correct?

Unfortunately, we were proven correct. Whole groups of children have been swept up by exploitation kidnappers, and we warned against this. We are currently discussing a child protection program for children and families in the Banda Ache region, perhaps replicating what we are already doing in the Philippines.

Also, we were right in not sending volunteers because we could not vet them against pedophile criminal registers. Sadly, some have gone, especially to Thailand, to “help the children”, with other personal, deviant schemes in mind.

What are you doing now to protect these children?

Other than the proposals we are already funding or soliciting for local education programs against exploitation, WER is the primary sponsor of a regional conference in Thailand in mid-March on “children at risk”, including tsunami victims and sexual exploitation. Our CEO will be a featured speaker at this meeting expected to draw staff from at least 70 child-focused agencies in Asia.

You talk about “embraceable communities”. What does that mean?

WER is not seeking massive government contracts to rebuild roads or hospitals, etc., although huge amounts of money are available. Our goals are focused on small clusters of people, especially children and their families: perhaps a small village, a group of nearby orphanages, etc. We are seeking three such “communities” to help over the next 3-5 years. Aiming for smaller groups perhaps insignificant to larger agencies, we can literally and figuratively “embrace” the people with cash, commodities, encouragement, coordination and love.

Are you satisfied with WER’s initial actions when the tsunami hit? What would you do differently?

Our first reaction was to get valuable supplies airlifted from England to the stricken region within 24 hours of the disaster. And we sent an excellent 3- person assessment team (see media coverage of their return) 24 hours later. The only thing I would do differently would be to hope we had more supplies immediately available for the victims, but anticipating those needs is difficult for even the largest agencies.

Most agencies, including WER, were unable to respond as quickly as we’d like because the disaster hit at the peak of a holiday week. Coupled with the multiple tsunami disasters which hit simultaneously in remote, often inaccessible locations, almost all of the worldwide “first responders” were slower than we would like; the exceptions were local agencies already working on other concerns in the impacted areas.

If I want to give to WER’s tsunami recovery effort, how can I do this?

Please click here for full instructions on how to send a gift to us, as well as giving an immediate, secured Credit Card gift.

(Further WER information, including our initial tsunami updates and reports from our initial assessment team and photos of their visit, can be found in our archives.)

Donate for Tsunami Disaster Relief Now