Typhoon Haiyan Survivors Still Face Lack of Shelter

Baltimore, MD (December 31, 2013) — A mother and her three young children take temporary shelter beneath a tarp outside their home which was destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban, Philippines. Heavy rains on Christmas Day sent many storm survivors scrambling for shelter in a country where more than one million family homes were severely damaged or completely destroyed last month by the one of the most powerful storms ever recorded. The storm has impacted the lives of more than 13 million people across 41 provinces in desperate need of food, water and shelter. International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) and its church partners in the Philippines are working to provide shelter assistance to 1,000 families left without habitable homes.

IOCC, an ACT Alliance member, is providing survivors in hard hit Tacloban City as well as Leyte and Samar provinces with urgently needed shelter repair supplies such as roofing, flooring and lumber to reconstruct damaged homes or to build semi-permanent shelters for those families whose homes were swept away by the 195-mile winds and torrential rain on November 8.

IOCC is also responding to more than 8,000 storm survivors with assistance including food parcels, medicine, emergency first aid for the sick and wounded, and water purification tablets to improve access to safe water for drinking and cooking. The need for emergency hygiene kits continues to grow. Instructions on organizing a kit assembly drive can be found on the IOCC website at www.iocc.org/kits.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

You can help the victims of Super Typhoon Haiyan by making a financial gift to the Philippines Typhoon Disaster Fund, which will provide immediate relief as well as long-term support through the provision of emergency aid, recovery assistance and other support to help those in need. To make a gift, please visit www.iocc.org, call toll free at 1-877-803-IOCC (4622), or mail a check or money order payable to IOCC, P.O. Box 17398, Baltimore, Md. 21297-0429.

###

IOCC is the official humanitarian aid agency of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America. Since its inception in 1992, IOCC has delivered $438 million in relief and development programs to families and communities in more than 50 countries. IOCC is a member of the ACT Alliance, a global coalition of more than 140 churches and agencies engaged in development, humanitarian assistance and advocacy, and a member of InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S.–based secular and faith-based organizations working to improve the lives of the world’s most poor and vulnerable populations.