Kenya’s drought has been declared a national disaster.

Ten million livestock have died, crops have failed and its now 35 kms or more to the nearest water for people in the worst affected counties. Water sources remain unprotected and easily contaminated.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=14989134021&aid=285661

Today was the first day of operations of our team and we chose to travel to the town of Tagajo, which has been severely affected by both earthquake and tsunami.
The manager of the town’s social service department Kenta Tesaki remembered us from our previous assessment visit last week and he was happy to register us to work in coordination with the governmental relief plan.
We expressed to him our wish to assist the elderly in cleaning up their homes so that they could move back and regain at least some measure of normality in their lives that have been so heavily shaken in the past two weeks.
While waiting for the assignment, we enjoyed the company of many youth who were also volunteering to help cleaning up the town. They were excited to see us there and, winning their hesitation to express themselves in English, they told us how thankful they were for our gesture of real solidarity.
Eventually we got assigned three homes that matched our requirements and the government staff brought us there and introduced us to Ineko Saitou, aged 73, who was battling with her flooded home. She was alone because her husband was sick and remained at the refugee center and after a few moments of expected hesitation from seeing so many foreigners in bright uniforms in her house, she became our obasan, or grandmother, smiling and feeling again optimistic about life.

Our AMURT and AMURTEL teams have finally arrived at Sendai and found accommodation at a youth hostel that besides being economical also affords us the possibility to cook our own food and do collective meditation.

The situation in downtown Sendai appears quite normal, but there are still long queues at gas stations and supermarkets, signs that normal distribution channels are only partially reactivated.

Only few hotels are open and they are fully booked by rescue teams, media from around the world and local people who lost their homes to the Tsunami.

Today we visited one of the many Volunteers centers that are directly run by the local government.

We got a map and list of the 50 refugee centers in Sendai and we could manage to visit one of the largest camps with about 700 to 800 refugees. We had the chance to spend some time with the children and the elderly. Everything seems orderly and all the refugees’ basic necessities are provided.

Tomorrow we will try to register in Tagajo city hall and start our elderly support program in that area, which was in part destroyed by the tsunami.

A new volunteer has joined us from today, Sabine who flew in from Scotland. She isn’t new to Japan as she spent three years here and she really wanted to return the kindness and hospitality she received in the past by the Japanese people.

Namaskar,

AMURT ist jetzt dabei, eine große Hilfsaktion im Nordosten Japans zu starten. Hier die Protokolle der letzten Tage:

18.03.:
The government in the Sendai welcome the offer from AMURT to begin relief work and appreciate the experience that they bring from other disasters in Haiti and Indonesia etc. However they are unable to provide any accommodation, food or fuel for our relief workers.

Our AMURT teams in Japan are dedicated and committed to providing whatever services they can to the refugees lacking basic human needs.

17.03.:
Our AMURT Team in Japan are still waiting for permission from the local government in Sendai to begin relief work. They are unable to make contact with officials in Sendai and are using the time to collect relief materials etc. and prepare for the work ahead. We hope to be there within 24-48 hours. We will post photos of relief work as soon as we receive them.

16.03.:
Right now our team is in Nagano collecting equipment and supplies and arranging vehicles etc. There are no hotels open in or near Sendai. They had to sleep in a car while they were there. They are hoping that they will be provided with a school classroom for accommodation etc. There is also no public transport from Tokyo to Sendai, whilst the radiation threat continues. Fuel, food and electricity are all in short supply and being rationed.

AMURT Deutschland

eingetragener Verein seit 1989
gemeinnützig seit 1990
Sitz Berlin

Derzeitige Projekte:
Katastrophenhilfe in Port-au-Prince/Haiti,
Kinderheim in Sangklaburi/Thailand,
Grundschule in Brazzaville/Kongo,
Jugendheim in Domnesti/Rumänien

Spenden bitte auf
Kt.-Nr. 69696106
Postbank Berlin BLZ 10010010
IBAN DE60100100100069696106
BIC PBNKDEFF

gemäß Freistellungsbescheid des
Finanzamts für Körperschaften I Berlin vom 16.08.2010
sind Spenden weiterhin voll abzugsfähig.

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, made a one day trip to visit earthquake affected Haiti. Since the January 12 earthquake, the Petionville Country Club has been transformed into one of the largest camps for displaced people in Port-au-Prince, with estimates of up to 70,000 people living there. AMURT has opened 3 Child-Friendly Spaces in the camp, serving approximately 460 children so far, and projected to serve up to 1000 within two weeks.  As Ban toured through the camp, he visited one of our Child-Friendly Spaces scheduled to open the following day. Sara Wolf (Sarita),  the AMURT Child Protection Coordinator,  explained the educational importance of providing safe opportunities for play and self-expression for young children. She  described our program which offers story-telling, art, music, karate and yoga as well as meals and nutritional support to children 4-12 years old. He enquired if the children are going to school, and she explained that  as schools still closed, AMURT is providing  this transitional program of 3 hours a day. He was very impressed to see how happy the children look. 

So viele Spenden haben wir noch nie in einem Monat erhalten:

Für Port-au-Prince/Haiti:         € 1450,00

Für Brazzaville/Kongo:             € 1257,00

Für Baan Unrak/Thailand:        € 8000,00

Vielen Dank für das uns entgegengebrachte Vertrauen - wir werden es nicht enttäuschen!

(=> http://www.baanunrak.org/)