NEWSLETTER
ISSUE 3 2014
WELCOME No organisation that aims to help more and more people every year can allow itself to stand still. Our ambition is to build on ShelterBox’s solid foundation, and become as good at disaster relief as we can possibly be. That means a willingness to innovate and be adaptable. In this Newsletter I am proud to show you some of the advances we are making, in communications, in evaluating what we do, in improving our accountability to donors, and – most importantly – in meeting
I joined ShelterBox because I think its future is both limitless and exciting. And it is by harnessing your enthusiasm and positivity that we can put smiles on the faces of more and more adults and children who have lost everything.
ordinary families, like yours and mine, but pitched into extraordinary circumstances. They probably never expected to be so utterly dependent on the kindness of strangers. As well as giving them practical help, I think part of what ShelterBox brings to any disaster scene is a sense of empathy and hope. We send the important message that, although they have been dealt a blow, the outside world has not abandoned them.
Alison Wallace, Chief Executive, ShelterBox
Our response teams are trained to ask the right questions, and listen carefully to the answers. Is what we have provided as useful as it can be? Might these families have other needs later on to help them rebuild their homes and lives? This feedback, and the way ShelterBox responds to it, helps us to grow as an aid ways we are encouraging and capturing this vital dialogue. And, of course, ShelterBox needs another good dialogue - with the thousands of individuals, community groups and organisations who fund and support our work.
Thank you PS In our next Newsletter we will be focusing on the tenth anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami. If you have any memories in responding to that immense disaster, we would love to hear from you.
this issue from one of our new celebrity Send to marknicholson@shelterbox.org
CONTENTS PG 3 A world of water | Flooding deployments on four continents PG 5 Boxing clever | How ShelterBox is innovating and adapting PG 9 Project Philippines | Our work in the wake of Haiyan PG 11 Newsreader Mark Austin | PG 13 Gifts in Wills | Preparing today, helping tomorrow PG 14 ShelterBox Online Shop | Gift ideas just a click away
Providing essential shelter in the Philippines. Photo by Mike Greenslade.
KEEP IN TOUCH: T: 01326 569782 E: info@shelterbox.org ShelterBox: Water-ma-Trout, Helston, Cornwall, TR13 0LW Compiled by: Mark Nicholson (marknicholson@shelterbox.org) Front cover image: A smiling family in the Philippines, February 2014 | John Cecil-Wright. Charity No: 1096479 Company No: 4612652 President: HRH The Duchess of Cornwall ShelterBox is a Charity independent of Rotary International and The Rotary Foundation.
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Flooding in Iquitos, Peru. Iquitos is the world’s largest city that is unreachable by road and situated next to the left riverbank of the Amazon River. Photo by Malcolm Shead.
A WORLD OF WATER
While global warming and climate change are debated by scientists and meteorologists, all ShelterBox knows is that so far in 2014 we than to any other type of natural catastrophe. > South America
families couldn’t return to their homes because
matches of the World Cup, they’d be forgiven for not knowing that nearby hundreds of thousands of Brazilians, Argentinians and Paraguayans had been forced from their homes
mosquito nets, solar lamps, groundsheets and blankets.
region.
the right conditions for possible malaria. ShelterBox sent 1,500 mosquito nets to help reduce the risk.
Following over two months of rain storms, Paraguay’s swollen rivers had displaced almost three times over, and in the Amazonas province of Brazil nearer four times as many people had to quit their homes. Evacuation centres were full to capacity. With over half a million people displaced from riverside communities across three South American countries, ShelterBox sent a team to carry out needs assessments and to work with the local Red Cross on aid distribution. Earlier, in February, ShelterBox had responded American country of Bolivia. Tens of thousands had moved to higher ground as their homes were submerged. ShelterBox worked with Oxfam to bring aid to displaced people.
> Europe On the other side of the world, 2014 started with the UK experiencing its wettest winter on record, with villages evacuated and communities in Somerset engulfed for months. tens of thousands of people from their homes
In neighbouring Bosnia the combination of
> Asia 2014 began in SE Asia with monsoon rains drowning parts of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, one of the world’s most heavily populated cities. 30,000 people were displaced, and power and communication lines were down. Within days they had another natural disaster to contend with as the volcano Mount Sinabung erupted. And as we go to press, ShelterBox has sent a response team to the mountainous Himalayan country of Nepal, where communities bordering China and India have been submerged by rising
> Africa
in Zimbabwe last February, and homes and farmland in the surrounding area were inundated. Thousands of Zimbabweans relocated to camps, which are still home to many families months after the disaster. ShelterBox distributed 805 tents in Chingwizi camp in a close partnership with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
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BOXING CLEVER years. One of the lessons has been that it shouldn’t feel ‘boxed in’ by the obvious appeal of a certain famous green asset. When you look across the international charity landscape, it is clear that ShelterBox has a strong branding advantage. events, and with audiences of all ages. Every marketer’s dream - a product that turns heads and changes lives. Not just a great package, but a great advertising package too. But disasters come in all shapes and sizes. ShelterBoxes don’t. So, over the years we have found ways of keeping the best of the box, without making our disaster responses too rigid or formulaic. After all, it isn’t the box itself that helps a family in need, but its carefully selected and sourced contents - the tent, equipment, solar lamps, cooking utensils, tool kit, mosquito nets and children’s activity packs. Mind you, ShelterBoxes are themselves often pressed into service as anything from cots to water butts to larders!
For many years now, particularly in response to major disasters, we have sent individual box contents in bulk rather than packed into ShelterBoxes. Often this is done to reach a disaster zone as rapidly as possible, sometimes direct from the country of manufacture, with a focus on the equipment most needed in that environment. ‘Deconstructing the box’ in this way can maximise the value of your donations by minimising transport distance, and making sure we send only what is really needed and appropriate for each situation and culture. (continues over)
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Sometimes we provide Midi Tents, a more compact version of our standard tent that is lighter to transport, easier to put up, and ideal where ground space is limited. Newer on the scene are Shelter
have been destroyed ShelterBox will often include ‘SchoolBoxes’ in their aid consignments. These contain essential supplies for teachers, including wind-up radios that also charge mobile phones, and school equipment for 50 children. We try to think of everything, so include blackboard paint and a brush – these two items alone can a focus for learning. It is hard to foresee a time when the ShelterBox itself won’t be central to all that we do. But we realise that, as a creative, responsive and adaptable organisation, sometimes it is necessary to think outside the box.
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CAPTURING SUCCESSES AND STORIES Smartphone technology has invaded all our lives, and ShelterBox has now designed an ‘app’ (application software for mobile devices) to make it easier to capture information from disaster zones.
currently being road-tested in Serbia after and collate all this information direct from a disaster zone by satellite in the blink of an eye. In another innovation, ShelterBox’s communications, development and operations teams joined forces in ‘Participatory Video’ project with Typhoon Haiyan survivors. interview technique, the end product is a real insight into their lives, and the successes and shortcomings of the aid they have received.
Our response teams have to feed back a lot of data from the front line – the people we have helped, the aid that has been provided, exact locations. But there is also richer data. The eyewitness stories of families, details of the disasters that overwhelmed them, and how our aid has helped their recovery. With the new app,
Videographer John Jones says, done and how we can help even more in the future, we can ultimately strive to be of our donors’ money.’
PROJECT PHILIPPINES The 16 Century proverb ‘it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good’ could have been coined for the Philippines. Standing in the path of some of the world’s most destructive winds, we have seen Filipino families constantly making good out of their storm-ravaged lives. And ShelterBox is The Philippines is a paradox. A melting pot of ethnicities and cultures with 100 million people spread across 7,100 islands. One of the world’s most densely populated cities is its capital, Manila, home to 12 million, with modern electronics and clothing industries. Yet most Filipinos live in remote island communities, gleaning meagre livings maritime paradise for diving and other watersports. The other paradox, of course, is its weather. This cluster of islands lies on a climatic superhighway known as the typhoon belt, and is the place on the globe most exposed to tropical storms. In a typical Philippines, with around nine of them making landfall. ShelterBox has a near constant presence in the Philippines helping these storm-ravaged communities, and has stock pre-positioned at Clark Airbase on Luzon Island. Locally typhoons are known as ‘bagyos’. Although Haiyan was a record-breaker for speed and power, the history books tell us of a far more deadly event in 1881 when an estimated 20,000 people perished in the Philippines, and many more on mainland Vietnam. Haiyan’s death toll was grim enough at 6,200.
ShelterBox’s response following Ramassun in the Philippines. Photos by Mike Greenslade.
So, it seemed inevitable that, while Filipinos were still counting the cost of Haiyan, another life-threatening storm was brewing to the east. On 16 July Typhoon Rammasun (locally known as Glenda) swept through the north of the country leaving 94 people dead, more than 300 injured, and tens of thousands homeless. Response team member Toby Ash arrived in land, within three days to carry out damage assessment. ‘Once again we have seen how the destructive power of these violent storms singles out the poorest and most vulnerable. We found a mother and her seven children eeking out an existence in the ruins of their former home.’ So particular are the needs of the Filipinos, and so huge was the international outpouring of sympathy and support for them after Haiyan, that ShelterBox has adapted and
extended its usual ways of working. Since the emphasis moved over the months from response to recovery to rebuilding, ShelterBox has sought to hold hands with partner charities in meeting these changing needs. A series of ground-breaking project partnerships has been ways that will be more resistant to this violent climate, reducing the need for continuous aid deployments to the same communities. ShelterBox also stocks a new product, the Shelter Repair Kit, which contains tools, sites from the unforgiving monsoon rains. Toby Ash has spent much of this year heading up ShelterBox’s project work in the Philippines. He says, ‘There has been visible progress, and you have to admire the resilience of the Filipino people in recovering from such devastation.’
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‘SHELTERBOX – AN IMPRESSIVE OPERATION’ It takes quite a lot to impress a BAFTA and Emmy award-winning TV journalist. But ITV News anchorman Mark Austin was full of praise when he visited ShelterBox headquarters.
ITV News at Ten’s Mark Austin may be one of ShelterBox’s newest celebrity friends, but he has been aware of the charity’s work for many years. Mark is a frequent visitor to Cornwall for family holidays, but July was us, ‘As a broadcast journalist I’ve seen many of the world’s disaster disasters. Which is where ShelterBox comes in – so often fast, equipment to help families begin rebuilding their lives.’
Alison Wallace showed Mark the production line where every ShelterBox is packed by hand, and then securely sealed before being despatched to disaster zones or pre-positioning locations across the latest deployments. Talking to local newspaper the Western Morning News during his visit, Mark said, ‘I have seen ShelterBox in action in disaster zones operation before.’ I was there to present News at Ten after the earthquake. I noticed these boxes appearing and the tents going up. The devastation was incredible and millions of people were homeless and displaced. We tents giving the thumbs-up.’ ‘Most recently I saw how they helped after Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines last autumn. The town of Tacloban had been completely destroyed and people were in desperate straits.’
on the scene.’ ‘ShelterBox is a very tangible form of aid – the basic equipment a family needs to survive. ShelterBox can be on the scene very quickly and they have an impressive operation.’
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GIFTS IN WILLS
PREPARING TODAY, HELPING TOMORROW Since ShelterBox began 14 years ago we have made it our mission to protect and support families overwhelmed by disaster to always be ready to help, no matter what.
prepositioned aid, ready and waiting at key sites around the globe.
typhoons and volcanic eruption.
Most importantly it allows us to plan ahead to provide the best aid possible, by constantly improving our tents and equipment, learning from every disaster we respond to. Every gift in every Will, however large or small, makes our dream of bringing comfort and protection to displaced families a reality.
Your gift provides our response team volunteers with the skills and knowledge to deliver aid directly to families in need. It also allows us to sustain our stock of
when making a Will, but once you have included the people you care about, you may want to remember the causes you care about.
Did you know that gifts in Wills are one of the crucial ways we make sure we are always prepared? This year alone they have helped
If you would like more information, or simply want to talk to us about how your on 01326 555128 or jamesmuir@shelterbox.org. Or complete and return the ‘Gifts in Wills’ section on the donation form at the back of this newsletter.
Thank you – we couldn’t help families rebuild their lives without you.
Always ready, ShelterBoxes being packed in Cornwall for destinations worldwide. Photo by John Jones.
SHELTERBOX ONLINE SHOP Looking for that special gift, and a way to help ShelterBox? Just visit www.shelterboxshop.org.uk for a great range of gift ideas, every one of which will help families in need.
NEW
Karabiners £1.50
ShelterBox running vests £18.00 wicking material, ShelterBox website address on the reverse (sizes S-XXL)
this Autumn, our range of Global Gifts support our disaster relief work all over the who already have everything! From £15.00
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Working in partnership with Rotary and project partners – a Filipino community shows its gratitude for the help you give. Photo by Matthew White