Medair news March 2014

MEDAIR | news No. 1

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2014

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medair.org

Reaching the Unreachable SOUTH SUDAN: DEEP IN THE WORLD’S LARGEST SWAMP THE PHILIPPINES: EMERGENCY RESPONSE IN A DISASTER ZONE

EMERGENCY RESPONSE

VISION

No one should suffer without relief, no matter where they live or how difficult they are to reach. That core conviction drives Medair to travel to some of the world’s most remote and devastated places to bring life-saving emergency relief and recovery services to suffering families. Although our mission does not demand remoteness, it demands that remoteness not be an excuse. When people are suffering on their own because they live in such isolated places, Medair staff embrace the challenge and travel by any means necessary to bring them relief—by horseback, motorbike, dugout © Medair / Janet Luigjes

canoe—whatever works! Providing relief in such hard-to-reach and devastated places naturally invites a certain amount of risk, yet Medair weighs the risks carefully to avoid placing staff in dangerous situations and will not hesitate to evacuate staff when necessary. There’s no denying the hardships that must be overcome when you travel to isolated places to bring emergency relief, yet we remain dedicated to the greater

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO SAVE THE LIFE OF A CHILD YOU’VE NEVER MET?

mission because we know that our presence brings immeasurable life-saving benefits to families who might otherwise be forgotten.

There wasn’t a moment to lose. A measles outbreak had killed 11 people in just three days in The Sudd—one of South Sudan’s most remote places. Without urgent vaccinations, many more children would die.

Please join us on our journey.

Jim Ingram Medair CEO

4 7

CRISIS BRIEFING

Reaching the Unreachable A F G H A N I S TA N

Scaling the Heights of Remoteness

5 8

D.R. CONGO

You Find a Way! THE PHILIPPINES

Bringing Relief to a Disaster Zone

6 9

SOUTH SUDAN

If You Are Reading This, I Made It Back... CHAD

Rising Rivers, Uncharted Crossings

Funding Partners Afghanistan: Swiss Solidarity, EuropeAid, UN Central Emergency Response Fund, UN Emergency Response Fund, EC Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid Chad: EC Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid D.R. Congo: EC Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid, United States Agency for International Development, UNOCHA, UNICEF, UNDP, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation Philippines: Swiss Solidarity, EO Metterdaad (NL), Tearfund (BE), Tearfund (UK) South Sudan: EC Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, UNDP, United States Agency for International Development Cover Photo: Medair staff keep their spirits high as they wade through waist-deep swamp water in South Sudan to vaccinate children at-risk of contracting measles (story on page 3). © Medair / Janet Luigjes

MEDAIR

1024 Ecublens Switzerland Tél: 021 694 35 35 suisse@medair.org medair.org

Our emergency response team boarded a small plane on a journey to vaccinate as many children as possible in one of the world’s largest swamps. We travelled by motorboat, hiked, canoed, and waded for seven hours deep into the swamp. Thankfully, we didn’t see or feel any snakes or crocodiles while we were up to our waists in the murky water! Keeping the vaccines cold was one of our biggest challenges, since this was South Sudan’s hottest time of the year. All the vaccines were kept in a cold box and had to be administered within five days or else they would become unusable due to the extreme temperatures. In every small village, people thanked us for coming and for being the first ones to help them. In just five days, we crossed countless miles of swampland and vaccinated almost 3,000 children for measles. It was worth every sacrifice we made to know that these children are protected for life from such a deadly disease. – Elisa Klaver, Medair Nurse medair.org

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January 2014

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Medair

3

EMERGENCY RESPONSE

VISION

No one should suffer without relief, no matter where they live or how difficult they are to reach. That core conviction drives Medair to travel to some of the world’s most remote and devastated places to bring life-saving emergency relief and recovery services to suffering families. Although our mission does not demand remoteness, it demands that remoteness not be an excuse. When people are suffering on their own because they live in such isolated places, Medair staff embrace the challenge and travel by any means necessary to bring them relief—by horseback, motorbike, dugout © Medair / Janet Luigjes

canoe—whatever works! Providing relief in such hard-to-reach and devastated places naturally invites a certain amount of risk, yet Medair weighs the risks carefully to avoid placing staff in dangerous situations and will not hesitate to evacuate staff when necessary. There’s no denying the hardships that must be overcome when you travel to isolated places to bring emergency relief, yet we remain dedicated to the greater

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO SAVE THE LIFE OF A CHILD YOU’VE NEVER MET?

mission because we know that our presence brings immeasurable life-saving benefits to families who might otherwise be forgotten.

There wasn’t a moment to lose. A measles outbreak had killed 11 people in just three days in The Sudd—one of South Sudan’s most remote places. Without urgent vaccinations, many more children would die.

Please join us on our journey.

Jim Ingram Medair CEO

4 7

CRISIS BRIEFING

Reaching the Unreachable A F G H A N I S TA N

Scaling the Heights of Remoteness

5 8

D.R. CONGO

You Find a Way! THE PHILIPPINES

Bringing Relief to a Disaster Zone

6 9

SOUTH SUDAN

If You Are Reading This, I Made It Back... CHAD

Rising Rivers, Uncharted Crossings

Funding Partners Afghanistan: Swiss Solidarity, EuropeAid, UN Central Emergency Response Fund, UN Emergency Response Fund, EC Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid Chad: EC Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid D.R. Congo: EC Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid, United States Agency for International Development, UNOCHA, UNICEF, UNDP, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation Philippines: Swiss Solidarity, EO Metterdaad (NL), Tearfund (BE), Tearfund (UK) South Sudan: EC Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, UNDP, United States Agency for International Development Cover Photo: Medair staff keep their spirits high as they wade through waist-deep swamp water in South Sudan to vaccinate children at-risk of contracting measles (story on page 3). © Medair / Janet Luigjes

MEDAIR

1024 Ecublens Switzerland Tél: 021 694 35 35 suisse@medair.org medair.org

Our emergency response team boarded a small plane on a journey to vaccinate as many children as possible in one of the world’s largest swamps. We travelled by motorboat, hiked, canoed, and waded for seven hours deep into the swamp. Thankfully, we didn’t see or feel any snakes or crocodiles while we were up to our waists in the murky water! Keeping the vaccines cold was one of our biggest challenges, since this was South Sudan’s hottest time of the year. All the vaccines were kept in a cold box and had to be administered within five days or else they would become unusable due to the extreme temperatures. In every small village, people thanked us for coming and for being the first ones to help them. In just five days, we crossed countless miles of swampland and vaccinated almost 3,000 children for measles. It was worth every sacrifice we made to know that these children are protected for life from such a deadly disease. – Elisa Klaver, Medair Nurse medair.org

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January 2014

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Medair

3

CRISIS BRIEFING

D.R. CONGO

Reaching the Unreachable

You Find a Way!

Medair’s mission is to relieve the suffering of vulnerable people whose needs have not been met by anyone else. We have the experience, the dedicated professional staff, and the commitment to make sacrifices and do what is needed to reach the “unreachable.” When the roads stop, Medair has the resolve to keep going.

How do you reach suffering people in a massive rain-forested country like D.R. Congo where the roads turn to mud whenever it rains?

HOW TO WORK IN SOME OF THE MOST REMOTE PLACES ON EARTH

Small bush plane 4x4 truck, car, commercial truck Motorbike Bicycle Motorboat Pirogue or canoe Horse

HOW WE COMMUNICATE Radios (VHF or HF) Inexpensive and reliable but requires others to have radios too Mobile phones Growing option, lightweight, but depends on service range and fueled cell towers Satellite phones Excellent but expensive Can be used to access internet

Donkey cart On foot

HOW WE PACK What might you find in the backpack of an emergency response team member on the move? Small mobile solar panel for electricity Safe water kit (water filters/tablets) Basic food Communication equipment Laptop and other working tools Orientation tools (GPS, maps, compass) First aid kit

Local knowledge is more important than any map or GPS technology. Building strong, trusting relationships within the communities where we work is what enables us to go the extra mile. It’s difficult to get to very remote places where nobody else could go if you don’t know about the geography from local residents. You need to know where the roads really are, whether they are muddy or flooded or blocked by fallen trees, whether there are land mines, whether there are airstrips, and the list goes on. Most maps of remote places cannot compare with what you gain from local knowledge. - Jean-Marc Bulliard, Medair Logistics Officer 4

Medair

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January 2014

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medair.org

Displaced families in northeast D.R. Congo are among the world’s hardest to reach people due to poor or nonexistent roads. “I remember being dropped off by a plane at one site, and you knew right away you could not escape,” said Jean-Marc, Medair Logistics Officer. “The roads were so bad that, depending on the season, it would take several weeks to get out. It could take a week to travel one kilometre! The road had sinkholes that were higher than a four-wheel drive Land Cruiser. You could go faster by foot, much faster.” Yet walking to a remote health clinic is not an option when you need to deliver heavy shipments of life-saving medicine. So you fi nd a way. Medair sends staff in two Land Cruisers in case one gets stuck on the way, with teams moving or chopping up all the fallen trees that block the path. We use motorbikes or bicycles when the roads are impassable for larger vehicles. At water crossings, we use dugout canoes or lash together makeshift log ferries to move a vehicle to the other side. When air travel is possible, we descend white-knuckled through a canopy of green trees to land on tiny airstrips carved out of the uneven jungle floor.

HOW WE TRAVEL

Medair’s logistics teams know what to do when the team is 100 miles from nowhere. They make careful plans yet remain flexible to respond to sudden developments. They test out new technology yet embrace some of the oldest tools around. They find a way to get the job done!

“That’s just the work that Medair does, we go to the people who need our help,” says Richard Mapuno, Medair Medical Supervisor. “The most vulnerable people are found only where the roads are the worst.” Once a month, Medair sends relief teams from Dungu to reach 13 different health clinics. The journey can take each team up to 12 days to complete. “It is our pleasure to deliver drugs to where there were none before,” says Stanislas Gabata, Medair driver. “Medair helps the vulnerable where there are no roads, even if there is no way and we have to make a way. We do this work because when people are suffering, you cannot refuse, you need to go.” When you make an extraordinary effort to reach families in their time of need, it’s more than just aid you bring them. You bring them a breath of hope. “When people see you coming, they are sometimes amazed,” says Jean-Marc. “I remember once we crossed a river over a log bridge. We had to be very careful because it was slippery and rainy. It took us maybe half an hour to cross that bridge, but when we did, the people on the other side were so touched that we would take the time and risk to come to them. They hadn’t seen a car come across that bridge in a very long time.” medair.org

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January 2014

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Medair

5

CRISIS BRIEFING

D.R. CONGO

Reaching the Unreachable

You Find a Way!

Medair’s mission is to relieve the suffering of vulnerable people whose needs have not been met by anyone else. We have the experience, the dedicated professional staff, and the commitment to make sacrifices and do what is needed to reach the “unreachable.” When the roads stop, Medair has the resolve to keep going.

How do you reach suffering people in a massive rain-forested country like D.R. Congo where the roads turn to mud whenever it rains?

HOW TO WORK IN SOME OF THE MOST REMOTE PLACES ON EARTH

Small bush plane 4x4 truck, car, commercial truck Motorbike Bicycle Motorboat Pirogue or canoe Horse

HOW WE COMMUNICATE Radios (VHF or HF) Inexpensive and reliable but requires others to have radios too Mobile phones Growing option, lightweight, but depends on service range and fueled cell towers Satellite phones Excellent but expensive Can be used to access internet

Donkey cart On foot

HOW WE PACK What might you find in the backpack of an emergency response team member on the move? Small mobile solar panel for electricity Safe water kit (water filters/tablets) Basic food Communication equipment Laptop and other working tools Orientation tools (GPS, maps, compass) First aid kit

Local knowledge is more important than any map or GPS technology. Building strong, trusting relationships within the communities where we work is what enables us to go the extra mile. It’s difficult to get to very remote places where nobody else could go if you don’t know about the geography from local residents. You need to know where the roads really are, whether they are muddy or flooded or blocked by fallen trees, whether there are land mines, whether there are airstrips, and the list goes on. Most maps of remote places cannot compare with what you gain from local knowledge. - Jean-Marc Bulliard, Medair Logistics Officer 4

Medair

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January 2014

|

medair.org

Displaced families in northeast D.R. Congo are among the world’s hardest to reach people due to poor or nonexistent roads. “I remember being dropped off by a plane at one site, and you knew right away you could not escape,” said Jean-Marc, Medair Logistics Officer. “The roads were so bad that, depending on the season, it would take several weeks to get out. It could take a week to travel one kilometre! The road had sinkholes that were higher than a four-wheel drive Land Cruiser. You could go faster by foot, much faster.” Yet walking to a remote health clinic is not an option when you need to deliver heavy shipments of life-saving medicine. So you fi nd a way. Medair sends staff in two Land Cruisers in case one gets stuck on the way, with teams moving or chopping up all the fallen trees that block the path. We use motorbikes or bicycles when the roads are impassable for larger vehicles. At water crossings, we use dugout canoes or lash together makeshift log ferries to move a vehicle to the other side. When air travel is possible, we descend white-knuckled through a canopy of green trees to land on tiny airstrips carved out of the uneven jungle floor.

HOW WE TRAVEL

Medair’s logistics teams know what to do when the team is 100 miles from nowhere. They make careful plans yet remain flexible to respond to sudden developments. They test out new technology yet embrace some of the oldest tools around. They find a way to get the job done!

“That’s just the work that Medair does, we go to the people who need our help,” says Richard Mapuno, Medair Medical Supervisor. “The most vulnerable people are found only where the roads are the worst.” Once a month, Medair sends relief teams from Dungu to reach 13 different health clinics. The journey can take each team up to 12 days to complete. “It is our pleasure to deliver drugs to where there were none before,” says Stanislas Gabata, Medair driver. “Medair helps the vulnerable where there are no roads, even if there is no way and we have to make a way. We do this work because when people are suffering, you cannot refuse, you need to go.” When you make an extraordinary effort to reach families in their time of need, it’s more than just aid you bring them. You bring them a breath of hope. “When people see you coming, they are sometimes amazed,” says Jean-Marc. “I remember once we crossed a river over a log bridge. We had to be very careful because it was slippery and rainy. It took us maybe half an hour to cross that bridge, but when we did, the people on the other side were so touched that we would take the time and risk to come to them. They hadn’t seen a car come across that bridge in a very long time.” medair.org

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January 2014

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Medair

5

SOUTH SUDAN

AFG HANI STAN

If You Are Reading This, I Made It Back...

Scaling the Heights of Remoteness

South Sudan faces multiple rapid-onset emergencies every year: conflict, flooding, mass displacement, and outbreaks of disease. Medair’s emergency response teams travel across the country to bring relief where it’s needed most.

This place cannot be described as a town, or even a village. You won’t find it on a map. It’s just a bumpy airstrip in the middle of nowhere, with a few huts on either side and the rusting carcass of a crashed plane in the bushes. Yet every day people come from out of the bush to be treated here; some having walked for days. Many of them come because of a disease called kalaazar. It’s one of the most horrible diseases imaginable, only affecting those in the most poor and remote places. It destroys the immune system and causes the body to waste away so its victims are reduced to a skeletal state. It is almost always fatal if not treated. People in this region have lived with outbreaks of this disease for as long as they can remember, seeing it kill neighbours and family members. 6

Medair

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January 2014

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medair.org

Abdul Hussain’s father died four years ago, leaving his son, 10, responsible for the family of seven. Pictured here in front of his home, Abdul stands with his mother, siblings, and a Medair staff.

This morning I talked with the mother of a fiveyear-old boy who is being treated for kala-azar in our clinic. She told me that both of her nieces had the disease but were cured at the clinic. Her sister also had the disease, but she didn’t come for treatment and died. It’s a lonely job for our faithful clinic supervisor, James. He has seen a lot: days when the clinic was flooded, when no planes could land for two months and the food ran out, when rebel militia came into the area and he was evacuated by a helicopter. He returned soon after to continue his work.

When our truck could go no farther, we would park and walk the rest of the way. Here, our team walked two kilometres uphill to visit a two-room home at the top of a mountain, headed by 14-year-old Abdul Hussain.

Abdul told us he feels the heavy burden of keeping his family alive. “I am feeling lonely,” he said. “I am feeling that I am a very poor person.” He is a boy who has been forced to grow up too quickly. He walks for hours every day to school, then returns home to farm the land. His whole family depends on him. On the day of the Medair food distribution, Abdul arrived hours early, smiling and looking excited. His mood seemed lighter. We could see that our support was going to make a real difference for Abdul’s family this winter.

‘If I refuse to come here, who is going to come?’ James says to me. ‘It’s better to offer to risk your life as one person than to risk the lives of 100 South Sudanese people. Even if I die because of such things, and 100 people live because of me, 100 people can do more than I can do.’ The rain still hasn’t let up. But even if I am stranded here for longer than planned, I know soon enough I’ll be able to get back to an area where I will have access to first-rate health care, food, electricity, and every other service I may need. People living here have no such luxury, and it’s hard for that to sink in right now.

The next fl ight is also supposed to bring more fuel, without which we cannot run the generator. That means no internet, and we won’t be able to charge the satellite phones. The solar battery has stopped working, as has the radio. Did I mention there is no mobile phone network here?

The only treatment is a course of painful daily injections for up to 30 days. At its peak, this tiny emergency clinic was overflowing with 373 patients who needed daily treatment.

At the end of 2013, Medair travelled to a remote region of Bamyan province to distribute emergency food supplies and help the most vulnerable families survive the winter.

I’m at our most remote project site in one of the most remote and undeveloped regions in the world. I am only supposed to be staying a couple of days, but if it rains, I may be stranded here if the dirt airstrip becomes too muddy for planes to land. And it’s raining right now.

by Stella Chetham, Medair

medair.org

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January 2014

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Medair

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