Devastation in the Philippines: 38 Degrees members chip in to help

Typhoon Haiyan ripped through the Philippines four days ago. 11 million people have had their lives torn apart. Homes are flattened and bridges are gone. It’ll take two months to restore electricity to the coastal city of Tacloban. 800,000 people are displaced, and it’s reported that at least 10,000 are dead.

The full scale of this tragedy is just beginning to unfold.

“In Tacloban everything is flattened. Bodies litter the street, many, many of which are children. From what I saw, two out of every five bodies was that of a child.”
Lynette Lim, part of Save the Children’s team in Tacloban City

The millions of children and adults catastrophically affected by Typhoon Haiyan urgently need food, water and shelter. 38 Degrees members are used to coming together at urgent moments. At times like this, when it’s so easy to feel helpless, the best thing we can do is to give our cash.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) brings 14 leading UK aid charities (like Oxfam and Action Aid) together in times of crisis, to coordinate huge relief efforts like this one. In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, the DEC has reported eyewitnesses comparing the worst affected areas to the devastation left by the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004.

Donations will really help. Here are some costings from the DEC to show how:

– £12.50 could pay for a month’s worth of water purification tablets for five affected families
– £25 could provide a hungry family with 1 week’s worth of food
– £100 could prove an emergency shelter and bedding for a family whose home has been flattened

Supporting these appeals isn’t much like the rest of what we do together – but sometimes, coming together to each chip in what we can afford, directly to the DEC, is the best thing we can do.

We did just that back in 2011 during the East Africa drought: 38 Degrees members donated towards the DEC appeal for food, water and medicine distribution efforts. That was a powerful statement of what our movement stands for – and we know that it helped.

We’ll get back to the gagging law tomorrow. But today, as the news and images from the Philippines get worse and worse, let’s chip in to help the relief effort.

Can you join thousands of fellow 38 Degrees members in chipping in now to help fund disaster relief and rebuilding work in the Philippines?

Make a secure donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Typhoon Haiyan appeal here.