World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

A decision to re-open schools in flood-hit northern Mindanao is being cited as key to re-establishing normality even though there are still huge challenges. (..) Various aid and development agencies had to scramble to clear classrooms and make repairs in time for the 3 January opening, while incentives such as free backpacks with school supplies were given to children on opening day to entice them back to school.

Doing their share to alleviate the plight of the recent flood victims in Northern Mindanao, the 6th Infantry “Kampilan” Division (6th ID) […] and the UN-World Food Programme (UNWFP) have prepared relief packs for distribution. […] Several metric tons of food items and water were included in the relief packs, together with the kilos of rice donated by the UN-WFP. […] “WFP donated 100 sacks of rice and it was agreed that the relief packs will be combined together. The goods are our help for our fellow countrymen, who were victims of the floods in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan,” Asto said.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) received $1 million each from CERF, enabling them to provide emergency water and sanitation services in evacuation centres, and deliver food and logistics support, according to OCHA, which manages the fund. “We are using the funds to provide emergency food to 81,000 displaced people over the next three months,” said Asaka Nyangara, the WFP Deputy Country Director for the Philippines. “Already we have started distributing high-energy biscuits to evacuees in the centres,” he added.

Residents of two southern Philippine cities battered by a storm that left over 1,000 people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands started the hard work of reclaiming their lives as authorities buried dozens of bodies in concrete vaults on Wednesday. (..) The disaster agency said nearly 1 billion pesos worth of infrastructure, schools and hospitals were destroyed in floods. The Agriculture department said more than 15 million pesos worth of crops, mostly rice and corn, were damaged. (..) Some of the displaced spent the night on sidewalks due to overcrowding in schools, churches, gymnasiums and army bases, raising public health concerns due to poor sanitation and lack of potable water.

"Water has not been restored to many areas, and people are not well sheltered,” Gwendolyn T. Pang, the secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross, said Monday by telephone. “The risk now is to the health of the survivors.” (..) Health officials are organizing vaccinations at the centers in an attempt to stem the infections.

During live art sessions, various artists auctioned off their artworks and decided to give part of the proceeds to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). (..) WFP will use this donation to provide approximately 12,000 hot, nutritious meals to school children in conflict-affected areas of Central Mindanao through its school feeding program.

Creating more jobs and assisting the country’s poorest sectors would help the Philippine government avert situations similar to the global protests against corporate greed, an official of the United Nations (UN) said today. Stephen Anderson, country director of the UN World Food Programme, said the government already has programs to provide relief to the country’s vulnerable sectors.

The damage from Typhoon Pedring (Nesat) breached the P9-billion mark Wednesday, with the damage to agriculture going up to P8.093 billion, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said Wednesday. (..) The World Food Programme donated 100,000 boxes of high-energy biscuits for 50,000 families in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines are stranded in evacuation centres or living with family and friends due to flooding. (..) Stephen Anderson, director, World Food Program, Philippines: That area, because of its mountainous terrain, they've had a lot of landslides, and roads washed out and bridges damaged. So altogether I think they are saying about 2.8 million people affected. It's a different problem than in the more low-lying areas of Region 3 where it's a more of a flat flood basin where the water is congregating and is sitting and that's where you have seen the scenes of people having to climb on their roofs and they expect the water to remain for another five days or so.

The subsiding water allowed relief workers to deliver food, medicine and dry clothes to families who had waited out the floods on their roofs and upper floors of their homes while being hit with back-to-back typhoons. (..) The United Nations' World Food Programme, meanwhile, said it was distributing 100 tonnes of high energy biscuits to augment government relief assistance.