Dear Friends,
AID-India and TNSF along with a few other organizations are co-ordinating
relief and rehab work from chennai. We will send continuous updates as and
when possible. And also mroe details with pictures soon.
Quick update (on 27/12, 9.45 PM IST)
* Visited foreshore estate and nochikuppam areas in the morning and got an
idea of the extent of damage.
* Arranged for distribution of food packets and water (which was in more
demand than the food) in foreshore estate
* Collected about 9 bags of used clothes from various places and sent to
nagapattinam through Mr.Ranganathan of Vidyarambam
* Bought about 160 blankets (all that we could get from stores today) and
distributed to people in camps in thiruvanmiyur and foreshore-estate. Took
detailed survey of affected women so that distribution could be done in an
organized manner. We have ordered for a lot more blankets and will get it
by tomorrow.
The situation now:
In cuddalore, nagai, kanyakumari etc., things are worse than chennai. In
many places, its difficult to get provisions like rice even if the money
is there. In chennai too, things are quite bad. People have been put in
temporary relief camps in chruches, schools and chathrams. We have to
anticipate huge need for temporary shelters in a few days. Clothes,
medicines, blankets etc. are needed in HUGE quantities.
There's definitely a much larger need for funds too....so please raise funds, through special fundraisers etc. too.
The plan:
We have formed co-ordination teams that will work with different groups in
the different districts. For chennai, we (including AID, TNSF etc.) will
do it ourselves. For other places, we will be working with TNSF / other
NGOs. In chennai itself, we have formed separate teams for thiruvanmiyur,
royapuram, foreshore estate and nochikuppam.
Our plan is not just to do short-term relief, but get involved in thorough
long-term rehabilitation over the next several months. AID Chennai
volunteers and others are basically going to be concentrating only on this
work over the near future. We have also had meetings with our volunteers
on distributing relief material, taking collection and distribution of
mater surveys towards long-term sustained work etc.
There are also separate teams that have been formed to co-ordinate
collection of material, allocation of resources to the various teams,
interacting with other groups, dealing with requests from other
organizations/companies/institutions etc. The AID-India office will be the
central co-ordination place for all activities, since we are taking the
lead and initiative. Balaji is co-ordinating overall and is also visiting
other districts. Others including myself are taking care of efforts in
chennai. Please contact AID office (2835 0403) or one of our cells
(Balaji: 94440 61033, myself: 94440 84910) in case of urgent requests.
-Ravishankar, AID Chennai volunteer and IIT Chennai Professor. |
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