Coverage: 51 sub-districts of
8 affected districts
Food for Young Children and School Students:
Quantity of
milk disbursed to date (28 Nov - 31 Dec):
20,012 litres
Quantity of
chocolates disbursed to date (28 Nov - 31 Dec):
202,200 pieces
* Milk donated by BRAC Dairy & Food Project and
chocolates donated by
Distribution of Clothing and
Blankets:
Clothes distributed to date (28 Nov - 31 Dec):
201,787 pieces
Blankets
distributed to date (05 Dec - 31 Dec):
20,453 pieces
Emergency
Medical Care:
11 Medical Teams were
dispatched following the cyclone, on Nov. 17
Patients
treated to date (18 Nov - 04 Dec):
21,838
(details)
Patients
treated by BRAC staff working with
116 Government medical
teams to date (18 Nov - 09 Dec):
40,004
(details)
The teams are
coordinating with government authorities and
currently working in the worst-affected areas in:
Barisal, Barguna, Khulna, Bagerhat & Patuakhali
districts
Most common
health problems: Injury,
colds,
fever and
diarrhea
Medical teams
also are distributing water
purification tablets and
creating awareness on using
safe water and teaching methodology
Pond
Decontamination:
BRAC staff
carrying out extensive
pond
decontamination drives with the support of
local communities
Coordinating
work with the government authorities and other NGOs
Issues for
Post-SIDR Agricultural Rehabilitation: Insights from
Farmers’ Consultation
PRESS BRIEFING NOTE
Mahabub Hossain,
Executive Director, BRAC
&
Uttam Deb Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Policy
Dialogue
10 December 2007
The super cyclone, SIDR that hit
Bangladesh on 15 November 2007 devastated vast areas in
the South-western coast. The cyclone severely ravaged
four districts - Barguna, Bagerhat, Patuakhali and
Pirojpur and badly damaged another eight districts.
According to official estimates nearly two million
households with 8.7 million people were affected, 1.5
million houses damaged, 4.1 million trees destroyed, and
crops in one million ha of land fully or partially lost.
The cyclone hit at a time when aman rice, the
predominant source of staple food in the area was about
to be harvested. The impact on national and household
level food security which was already severely affected
by two consecutive floods in August and September is
likely to be severe. The challenge to the nation now is
restoration of livelihoods of the affected households.
An agricultural rehabilitation program needs to be
initiated immediately to generate employment and
increase food production, to minimize the effect on
rising food prices and household level food insecurity.
The authors visited extensive areas in the four severely
affected districts during 6-8 December, to have a visual
impression on the damage to crops, and to get an idea of
the elements that should feature prominently in the
agricultural rehabilitation program. We travelled
through the
Madaripur-Barisal-Patuakhali-Barguna-Pirojpur-Bagerhat-Gopalgonj-Bhanga
route, and stopped in Kalapara (Patuakhali), Betagi (Barguna),
Mathbaria (Pirojpur) and Morelgonj (Bagerhat) to have
consultations with a group of 20-30 farmers in each
place. The focus group meetings with farmers were
organized by local BRAC offices. In the meetings, we
tried to assess the loss to crops and fisheries,
agricultural activities that could be initiated
immediately, constraints that they would face in
restoring livelihoods, and external support needed to
address those constraints. In addition, we had meetings
with rice scientists of the Bangladesh Rice Research
Institute (BRRI) at the Barisal Station. We thank all
the farmers, scientists, experts and BRAC officials for
their help in supporting the field trip.
BRAC to write-off loans of
Taka 100 crore for cyclone victims
DHAKA,
06 December 2007 – BRAC will write off
micro-finance loans of around Taka 100 crore in cyclone
devastated areas. The decision was taken today
(06.12.07) basing on initial assessment of the Sidr
affected areas. BRAC had earlier decided not to collect
micro-finance installments from its borrowers in all
cyclone affected areas of the southern region till
March. However, new loans to affected borrowers will
continue to be disbursed with a view to generate
economic activities. BRAC is undertaking massive
rehabilitation program in agriculture, fisheries and
livestock sectors in the cyclone-devastated region. BRAC
responded to the cyclone disaster by immediately
engaging in relief operations and deploying some 2500
staff for distribution of food and cash relief. Till
Friday relief worth more than taka twelve crore have
been distributed to 1,84,000 households comprising
mainly food rations of rice, lentil, biscuits and milk
packets. Cash grants of Taka three crore have been
disbursed. BRAC has raised a total of Taka 40 crore for
rehabilitation in the first phase. BRAC is planning to
raise a further sum of at least Taka 200 crore for long
term rehabilitation and disaster protection activities.
13 medical teams
comprising one medical officer with two para-medics in
each team in the affected regions have treated 18,520
patients. Over 550 ponds have been cleaned and
disinfected for supplying potable water.
cyclone
relief updates
PRESS
RELEASE
BRAC reassures borrowers on
loan repayments Reports high demand for
kick-start loans
DHAKA, 25
November 2007 – With one of the largest
microcredit programme in the country, BRAC has been
reassuring borrowers caught up in the aftermath of
Cyclone SIDR that they will help them every step of the
way to rebuild their business and livelihoods.
They estimate
that more than 150,000 homes belonging to BRAC borrowers
were completely destroyed in the cyclone and a further
270,000 borrowers have been seriously affected. 80% of
these people had outstanding loans with an average loan
of 7000 Taka (US$102).
BRAC has
suspended loan repayments for at least two weeks and
will take a few weeks to restart normal loan repayment
meetings.
“Those borrowers
who can’t pay, will not be forced to pay. There is no
compulsion. Inevitably BRAC will have to absorb some
losses. Out of about 300 crore loans (approx US$44
million) outstanding in that region, there may have to
be some write offs. We are constantly reviewing the
situation.” said Fazle Abed, Chairman and Founder of
BRAC.
BRAC has also
suffered fatalities and reports that 281 village
organisation members tragically lost their lives on the
night of the cyclone. Their families qualify for BRAC’s
death payment of 5,000 Taka (US$73) and the immediate
cancellation of any outstanding loans.
BRAC is also
reporting high demand for new loans from its existing
borrowers as they start rebuilding their lives. Shabbir
Chowdhury, Director of Microfinance said:
“The important
thing is for people to restart their businesses. If they
want any assistance, we are ready to help them and bring
them back to where they were before the cyclone hit.”
“BRAC not only
helps people with business restart loans, but also helps
throughout the whole process of starting the business.
For instance, if a banana plantation owner has lost all
their trees, BRAC will help with a kick-start loan and
new payment plan, help with fertilizer and acquiring the
saplings, and also look at rebuilding all the income
sources that they had before.”
There have been
some calls for all loans in the affected region to be
cancelled. Chowdhury said:
“We can’t cancel
all loans in the affected areas - if people have the
money to pay, they should pay. The situation is not
even. In one BRAC village organisation, some have lost
everything, whereas some are not affected. They are even
doing well because they are hiring out vehicles - such
as pushcarts, vans and rickshaws - and benefiting from
increased labour rates.”
“The sooner
people start talking to BRAC the sooner they can get
back to business – which will provide them the long term
solution that they need. Many borrowers who have lost
everything have already received new emergency loans for
restarting their businesses and rebuilding houses”
BRAC was the
first organisation to help the people in the worst hit
areas and BRAC will stay to the very last – making sure
people have everything they need for a long term
solution to the affect this natural disaster has had on
their lives.
cyclone
relief updates
PRESS
RELEASE
Tk. 7 Million Contributed to
Cyclone Relief by BRAC Staff Relief operations reach
over 300,000 cyclone survivors
DHAKA, 24
November 2007 – Over 44,000 regular staff members of
BRAC from around the country have contributed a total of
Tk. 7 million from their salary towards BRAC’s cyclone
relief operations.
To date, BRAC’s
cyclone relief operations have been able to reach the
remotest regions of the worst-affected areas and have
distributed emergency relief items to more than 300,000
victims from over 60,000 households in Bagerhat, Barguna,
Barisal, Bhola, Gopalganj, Jhalokathi, Khulna, Madaripur,
Patuakhali, Pirojpur & Shariatpur districts.
Over 2,500 BRAC
staff positioned at the affected areas are distributing
relief packets containing rice (10 kg), biscuits (2
packets), lentil (1 kg), matches (2 boxes) and Tk. 200
in cash. Thirteen BRAC medical teams are also providing
emergency medical care to victims in the Barisal,
Barguna, Khulna, Bagerhat & Patuakhali districts and to
date have treated over 5,500 patients. Alongside, BRAC
medical staff are also working with 116 government
medical teams in other areas. BRAC staff are also
coordinating extensive pond decontamination drives in
order to ensure a regular supply of drinking water over
the mid-term.
BRAC began
emergency relief operations immediately following the
cyclone, initially contributing Tk. 70 million from its own
resources and is currently seeking donations from home
and abroad to support the expansion of relief
operations. BRAC will also initiate livelihood and
agriculture rehabilitation programmes in the affected
regions following emergency relief.
FIELD
REPORT
Interview with Faruque Ahmed, Director of BRAC's Health Programme, who has just returned from
the relief sites
Dates of site
visit: 20-22 November
Areas visited:
Patharghata, Betagi, Barguna Sadar (Barguna District),
Mirzaganj (Patuakhali District), Bhandaria and Mathbari
(Pirojpur District).
OBSERVATIONS
There is an
on-going need for food, water, winter clothing, housing
and medical treatment. BRAC is operating on a huge scale
– in one day alone we managed to provide a week’s worth
of food to about 70,000 people. BRAC has a target of
reaching 150,000 families (about 750,000 people) by the
end of the week.
Smaller food sacks with cash
BRAC food sacks
now include rice, lentils, energy biscuits and matches
plus 200 Taka to buy other essentials. Next to the
Government, BRAC is providing significant food aid
compared to other NGOs. 10 kg of rice per family is a
large amount to provide. These smaller sacks are easier
to transport while still providing enough food for a
week for one family.
Roads and mobile phones
Distributing such
a huge quantity of food, medicine, water treatments, and
clothing is one of our most pressing challenges. A
combination of destroyed roads and shortage of
transportation is affecting how many food sacks we can
move at any one time. The local administration is
helping us in some areas so we have access to their
vehicles at certain times, which is a big help. Hardly
anyone can charge their mobile phones, so this also
causes problems for essential communication between
teams.
Labour costs rising
The supply chain
is still experiencing some problems especially from wage
inflation and transportation challenges. There is a
shortage of available labour because people are busy
queuing for food relief and rebuilding their own
destroyed homes. Daily rates are double or sometimes
triple their normal levels. Supply and demand issues are
also affecting key items such as the plastic bags used
to distribute the relief, with prices increasing from 4
Taka to 12 Taka.
Scarcity of tube well heads
There is also a
real scarcity of tube-well heads to replace those that
have broken. BRAC’s Water, Sanitation, and Health
Programme is funded by the Dutch Government and they
have kindly agreed to divert funds to buy this
equipment.
Loan repayments still suspended
BRAC has
suspended all loan repayments for two weeks – of which
one week is remaining. A full report on this will be
submitted tomorrow by the Microcredit Director returning
from the field. However many people are coming to us
wanting to pay their installments, especially those
earning more money now from higher labour wages etc. It
is not a simple situation and we need to treat them on a
case by case basis. Those who can pay should continue to
pay while we review the situations of those who have
lost everything.
Coordination is improving
We are
coordinating at all levels with the civil administration
and other NGOs. We all agree together who is working in
which areas and sometimes we are asked to pull out of
one area and focus on another village which is in
greater need. We are particularly strong on reaching the
most remote villages where we are used to providing
microcredit and health services.
BRAC medical
teams working alongside government
Our 13 medical
teams are working closely with the government teams and
in some cases the army is using our distribution network
to give out oral saline treatments and water
purification tablets. They are also helping us with any
drugs that our medical teams need.
Increase of
severe diarrhea in isolated pockets
There are some
areas that are experiencing an increase in diarrhea as
people continue to drink contaminated water. When there
are rotting carcasses in the water, there are various
pathogens that are very dangerous such as amoebic
dysentery and bloody dysentery caused by the Shigela
bacteria.
For one of the
worst hit areas, in Patharghata, there is an outbreak of
severe diarrhea because there are no tube wells there
and most of their ponds were contaminated. Fast progress
is being made here because of the increased risks and 50
of the 120 ponds in Mathbaria and Pathorghata which can
be used as sources of drinking water have now been
treated – BRAC expects to finish treating the remaining
70 ponds by the end of the week.
Referrals to
district hospitals under 5%
We are seeing a
few cases of the very dangerous septicemia which is
caused by infected injuries. We make sure that these
patients are transported to the district and
sub-district hospitals where this life threatening
condition can be treated properly. We are confident
however that these cases are contained and as yet we are
not seeing major cases of it.
EYE-WITNESS
ACCOUNT
Interview with Babar Kabir, BRAC Water, Sanitation and
Hygiene Programme Director, who has just returned from
the relief sites
Dates of site
visit: 20-21 November
Areas visited:
Shoronkhola (10 unions ~200,000 people) and Morrelganj
(16 unions ~280,000 people) in Bagerhat, Khulna Division
in South West Bangladesh.
Purpose of
visit: To assess availability of water, see what can
be provided and identify any difficulties in the supply
chain.
How many
hours are BRAC staff working?
“BRAC staff have
been working on overdrive since the night of the
cyclone, not withstanding the traumatic experience they
underwent themselves with their families, they are
devoting twenty hours a day to the relief effort. I know
staff that have only slept six to seven hours in the
last five days.”
How does
BRAC identify the people to help?
“Our staff go out
to the villages and identify the poor or the needy.
Victims have erected makeshift tents out of bamboo and
plastic. We talk to them, find out who is missing and
give them a timed ticket to go to their local BRAC
office and collect their week’s supply of food and
essentials.”
“There is no
social security safety net in Bangladesh like they have
in Europe. So here the social fabric is basically your
safety net. People do keep track of each other and can
tell you if their neighbour is missing. During the night
of the cyclone, everyone opened their doors to provide
shelter. We had 200 people sheltering in one small BRAC
office alone.”
“BRAC is helping
everyone who needs help and we want to emphasise that we
are not restricting our aid to our members but are
including everyone in need.”
What
happened on the night of the cyclone?
“When the cyclone
hit, the water level rose to about 3 feet but that
happened slowly and people just decided to sit it out.
Then suddenly within 30 minutes the water level rose
dramatically to 8 feet high and everyone was terrified.
It took about 5-6 hours for the water levels to
subside.”
What makes
BRAC different in its approach?
“BRAC was able to
immediately access US$1 million of our own resources for
the relief effort.”
“One local
sub-district commissioner said that BRAC is a permanent
structure in the villages. With BRAC, the villagers feel
that they won’t be abandoned and many of the staff have
been stationed there for more than two years. It is not
as if our people are going to give the food and then go
away – they have learned to trust us which helps when we
are giving them instructions about water sanitation and
health issues.”
How does
the supply chain work for getting food relief to
people?
“I have just
visited Bagerhat, one of the worst affected areas.
Initially we gave out candles, high energy biscuits and
cooking oil. Now we are giving out large food sacks”
“The process
starts at the regional centres where they procure the
daily supplies such as rice, lentils, potatoes and oil.
These centres adapt the food packages to what is coming
in as well. We are giving out 10kg of rice to each
family. For someone who has not had food for 3 days,
having a full plate of khichuri (lentils and rice), it’s
going to be their first hot meal in a long time. People
are cooking the food we are providing, we have seen
them.”
“At the regional
centre, it is a conveyor belt approach to packing the
food up that starts at about 6pm when the provisions are
delivered. The different food supplies come in and BRAC
staff divide them up into smaller portions, they are
counted, sorted and packed into one large 15kg sack –
that is also sealed to prevent it from splitting. They
are loaded onto the trucks that go to the local centres
to reach the villages.”
“Where I have
just been, the ferry was run aground by the cyclone. So
there were large tailbacks of relief vehicles trying to
get across the river. We rented small boats to take the
food sacks across and then on the other side we have to
use rickshaw vans that take the sacks to the different
local offices, all the time we are having to account for
every sack of food and make sure that if we send 3,000
sacks of food to one BRAC office, 3,000 sacks of food
arrive. So far we have only lost a few sacks through
damage and splitting.”
“The whole
process from ‘food to field’ takes 24 hours or less on
average. However in one area there is no road to the
BRAC office, so we have to coordinate 100 people to
carry a thousand food sacks to the distribution point.
It’s a chain of BRAC staff all working together.”
Are there
long queues for food?
“When we give
people the voucher, we give them a time when to come to
the BRAC centre. 200 people at 9 am, 200 people at 11 am
and so on. So in one day we can give out 1,000 food
sacks from one local office. Unfortunately people are
scared that the food will run out – so a person with a
three o’clock ticket will turn up at 9 am. One person
said to me “You’ve only given me a slip to console me
and I know you will run out by 3pm”. We say that you
must trust us, we have given out a thousand tickets for
a thousand sacks, you won’t go without. But we
understand that people are scared.”
How much
food can you distribute from one local centre?
“Each local
office is a square room where we set up four corners to
hand out the food sacks. It takes one person one minute
to process a person and give them a sack of food –
enough for a family of five. So each centre has four
corner points meaning we can shift four sacks each
minute. You have to remember that our staff are also
traumatised by the event themselves and have had very
little sleep, so it is remarkable that they can work so
fast.”
Are you
turning people away?
“Each day maybe
one or two people turn up without tickets. We process
them into our system and give them a ticket – none goes
without one.”
What are
you doing about provision of water?
“We want to
ensure a regular supply of drinking water within the
next 2-3 days. The Army and civil administration as well
as charities like Muslim Aid and the Scouts are all
tackling this problem together. BRAC in particular is
focusing on mid-term solutions and we are treating the
ponds that have become contaminated - where people
normally get their drinking water from.”
“We are also
fixing the damaged pond sand filters. These filter water
through a sandbed using water from ponds. We are
splitting the work with the Department of Public Health
and Engineering with BRAC fixing about four each day.”
How is a
pond decontaminated?
“There are four
stages. First we remove the dead cattle, fallen trees
and major debris. Then we use a fine mesh net and drag
the pond to remove smaller debris like dead leaves that
can discolour water and put people off from drinking it.
Then we disinfect the pond with limestone. Our staff
have to wear protective gloves as lime gives off a lot
of heat when mixed with water. The pond gives off steam
that could burn them if they are not careful. Then we
leave the lime to do its work for a minimum of twelve
hours and guard the pond from anyone drinking from it.
The last process is to treat it with alum – aluminum –
which acts as a coagulant that means it attracts large
dirt particles as it sinks to the bottom of the pond.
Basically it helps settle the remaining particles at the
bottom of the pond leaving drinkable water on the
surface.”
While you
are cleaning up these ponds, what are people
drinking?
If they can’t
access the emergency water supplies, then yes, people
are drinking contaminated water. Although our statistics
are thankfully not showing a major problem with diarrhea
yet. You do see people taking risks because they are
desperate. I saw two rotting dead cows and a goat in a
canal and there was a little girl upstream who was
collecting water. I just prayed that because she was
upstream of the decomposing bodies that she would be
ok.”
Interview by Penelope Mawson, BRAC Public Affairs &
Communications
Permission is granted to media to use all or part of
this interview for articles.
Cyclone Sidr has
caused devastation in over 70 sub-districts in the
greater Barisal, Khulna, Faridpur and Patuakhali regions
.of Bangladesh. Sidr was nearly of the same magnitude as
the December 1970 cyclone in the then East Pakistan in
which almost 500,000 people lost their lives. According
to preliminary estimates obtained from BRAC field
offices, nearly 12% of BRAC offices operating in
Bangladesh have been severely affected by the cyclone
and the overall death toll in the country is likely to
exceed 5,000.
The affected
areas mostly depend on a single crop, the aman variety
of rice, which is usually harvested in December. This
year’s crop has now been totally destroyed. The impact
on household-level food security will therefore be
severe, as it will take almost a full year to recover
rice production.
BRAC
started extensive emergency rescue and relief operations
immediately after cyclone Sidr hit on the night of
Thursday November 15th. In the early morning of Friday
November 16th, BRAC’s first response was to immediately
engage over 2,500 BRAC staff from different BRAC
programmes who are already stationed in the worst hit
areas for their respective programmes, to provide
round-the-clock relief support. The areas include
Borguna, Patuakhali, Bagerhut, Pirojpur, Bhola, Barisal,
Jhalakathi, Khulna, Gopalgonj, Shariatpur, and Madariput.
On the same day BRAC responded by sending a truckload of
emergency food from Khulna to Shorankhola. As a result
of the storm, roads have been greatly damaged or blocked
by debris and with great difficulty BRAC was able to
transport the emergency food by truck only upto
Morolgonj from where the food was transported by trawler
to Shorankhola.
BRAC
is already distributing food and other emergency relief
items to cyclone victims and thus as of November
18th 2007, food relief has been distributed among 22,944
households. Further allocations have been made to
provide immediate relief to 150,000 families in the
twelve districts with a food package which includes:
10Kg of rice, 2Kg of Dal (lentils), 1 Kg of salt, 2Kg of
potatoes, 250Mg of oil, 2 packets of biscuits, and 2
boxes of matchsticks. In addition to the emergency food
relief BRAC will distribute old/used clothes from
donations to the cyclone victims as well as distribute
blankets to 150,000 families.
Emergency medical support constitutes a very
important part of the BRAC Relief Programme for cyclone
victims. Thirteen dedicated medical teams equipped with
emergency medical supplies have been dispatched in the
worst affected areas to provide medical care. A budget
of Tk. 16,000 has been allocated for each of the
thirteen teams for treatment purpose. 240 BRAC health
staff are also working jointly with Government health
team to provide emergency medical support to the cyclone
victims.
BRAC has a
Disaster Management Unit in place at the head office
that has been actively working from Friday November 16th
with the specific purpose of organizing the rescue and
relief work for cyclone Sidr. The Disaster Management
team meets with BRAC senior management every morning to
provide information on the progress and changes in the
situation. BRAC has deployed a senior manager from BRAC
head office to set up a central information and
coordination centre in Barisal for the rescue and relief
operations taking place in the twelve districts. The
senior manager in Barisal is maintaining close
coordination with the Disaster Management Unit at BRAC
head office. Two directors of BRAC are also in the
affected areas to assess the situation and oversee
relief efforts.
