News
Assessments are underway in Camp Perrin and Les Cayes. GER3 activated a local team to assess earthquake-affected communities, determining how GER3 can best support. Debris management will be a critical part of relief and recovery efforts.
Housing units attached to Marsh Harbour’s healthcare centre have been restored. The units, which previously housed essential medical personnel and staff, were badly damaged by Dorian in the fall of 2019. Essential workers have been living in RVs and trailers since. GER3, with the support of Direct Relief and Discovery Land Company Foundation, restored the six housing units, ensuring they are ready for personnel to return and are better prepared to withstand future storms.
At the same time, GER3 is leading another housing rehabilitation and capacity building project in Abaco. Despite great work by various housing support initiatives after Dorian, many homeowners are still very much in need of assistance, especially as they face another hurricane season. GER3's project is rehabilitating eight vulnerable homes and incorporating several capacity building events for local community members to learn new techniques for building back better. Generous donors are supporting GER3 to undertake this community recovery work through September 2021.
"Today I would like to express my gratitude to the GER3 team. Thanks to GER3 and their donors, Central Abaco Primary School (CAPS) opened its doors to students and faculty on April 12, 2021, since closing, after being severely damaged by Hurricane Dorian. Students and faculty were able to return to a fully-rehabilitated, safer and sustainable school. To Mr. Reilly Dooris, Program Director and Mr. Damian Browne, Project Manager, we say thank you. To all the donors, local contractors, and community helpers who contributed to the rebuilding of CAPS through GER3, I say thank you."
-Troy Ritchie, Central Abaco Primary School Principal
GER3 is delighted to see students, faculty and staff back in school this month and appreciates the kind words of the school's principal. Our team extends its greatest thanks to all the donors, partners and local team members who contributed to the project.
GER3 continues its support to hurricane recovery work in Honduras. The team is now completing a community debris removal and cleaning project, funded by the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, providing access to the community of La Canaan in La Lima.
The streets are fully accessible and mud and debris have been cleaned out of more than 40 homes. To understand more about the needs of each family and the ongoing needs of the community at large, GER3 developed a local team to perform in-depth assessments of the community. With strong assessment data, GER3 is also coordinating and communicating with other local NGOs and entities who can complement GER3’s work and provide further support to La Canaan.
Over the past month, Vicenta, Allison, Rosa, Medeleine, Cindy and Cindy (Pink) carried out a series of community assessments for GER3 in La Canaan. The team of women went home-by-home asking questions that focused on understanding the specific situation of each family. This included information about the general formation of the family, their economic income, the infrastructural damage their home suffered due to the hurricanes, the most critical needs of the family and those of the community. The assessments also considered the status of Covid-19 and its impact on the community, especially in the field of education. In La Canaan, there are 151 children between the ages of 6 and 17 that are currently enrolled in school but have extremely limited access to means of communication or connectivity for virtual classes.
The assessment team was stunned by the vulnerability of this community. These women also live in La Lima, which was one of the areas hardest hit by the storms. They too had to clean out their homes and they too were unemployed, but seeing and experiencing the community of La Canaan put their own situations in perspective.
One of our assessment team members described her humbling experience seeing the destruction and understanding the community's basic needs for a functioning septic system, potable water, electricity and accessibility. At the same time, every member of La Canaan welcomed her and offered whatever they could, whether it was a small cup of coffee or a galleta. Knowing the assessment would lead to support to the community was both gratifying and inspiring. She ended by saying that she was very “proud to be part of this wonderful work and if I had to do it again I would do it again with all my heart.”
GER3 has nearly finished creating access to the entire community of La Canaan and has helped clean out the homes of those most severely affected. The in depth community assessments support the ongoing work in the community and also inform the future support from partner and peer NGOs and local entities.
As work in Honduras continues, there is still a lot to be done and GER3 will continue to do its best to ensure communities like La Canaan are supported.
GER3’s team has continued response and recovery work in Honduras, building a strong local team with a focus on debris management. Two key projects are underway while the team also continues to design additional projects and programs to expand GER3’s impact and support to the region. Affected communities face a long road to recovery and GER3 is committed to supporting wherever possible.
The team is hard at work recovering the Proniño property outside of El Progreso. Proniño is a children’s home that helps children that have lived on the streets and/or experienced abuse, death of a parent or extreme poverty in their home by providing them with education, living space, safety and the opportunity to learn a variety of skills while socializing with other children who face similar situations. Proniño currently houses 22 boys and 7 girls and also supports 6 university students who had previously lived on the campus and now receive assistance in the form tuition and employment opportunities.
GER3's team of nine daily workers is leading the deep cleaning of mud and debris from 15 separate buildings on the campus, including pressure washing the walls and floors to thoroughly clean the interior and exterior of each building. A local equipment operator was contracted to remove the debris, sand and mud, amounting to more than 1,125 cubic meters removed from the property to date. Local workers are working alongside the heavy machinery to remove debris where the machine cannot. In addition, the team is repairing access to the property by clearing and restoring the driveway. Gravel will be installed in the coming days to complete the finished driveway. GER3’s work at Proniño will be completed in the next week, allowing for further assessments to take place and allowing Proniño to make informed decisions regarding next steps in the rehabilitation process.
Preparations are underway for a new community project, made possible by the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP). The project will focus on community debris removal and household cleaning in La Canaán. GER3 has been working with community leaders to make sure the work will be carried out as efficiently as possible while making a significant impact. With CDP’s support, all streets in the community will be cleaned by GER3’s team and residents who have not yet been able to remove mud from their homes will be assisted. Many families from La Canaán continue to live in temporary shelters or tents along a nearby highway. Most vulnerable families will be identified, and priority will be given to make sure that they are able to get back onto their feet and return to their homes as soon as possible. GER3 is eager to support this community and these families return to their homes throughout this project.
Following the devastation of Hurricane Dorian in September 2019, Bahamian communities have a new appreciation for hurricane preparedness. The Category 5 hurricane was unlike anything they had faced before, taking many lives and leaving entire communities devastated. As part of their recovery efforts, communities are reconsidering how to prepare for future storms.
GER3 recognized gaps in hurricane preparedness and took the opportunity to develop a program to enhance hurricane shelter capacity and community resiliency. With generous funding from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP), GER3 supported critical rehabilitation of four hurricane shelters, each of which was considered to be a cornerstone for its community and was underserved by existing recovery efforts. In addition to the physical rehabilitation of shelter structures, shelter manager trainings and emergency supplies were included to ensure a holistic approach to capacity-building and resiliency.
The project also supported 18 vulnerable households to undertake critical home repairs, accelerating their path to recovery. The homeowners were particularly vulnerable in terms of their ability to restore their homes and many were losing hope for a full recovery. At the same time, many of these homeowners continued to support their communities and help other families and people in need before themselves. Through this project, GER3 was able to work closely with these remarkable individuals, helping them make significant progress in restoring their homes and lives on Abaco.
Watch below to learn more about the shelter and home rehabilitation project.
Over the past year, GER3’s team in the Bahamas led the rehabilitation of the Central Abaco Primary School (CAPS), the largest public school in Abaco that was badly damaged by Hurricane Dorian. The fully-rehabilitated, safer and more sustainable school is now being handed back to the community. Thanks to a strong team of local contractors, cash-for-workers and suppliers, the classrooms are freshly renovated, the ground is clear, and the new metal roof can withstand even the strongest winds. In addition, the school has been rebuilt to meet official hurricane shelter standards and is well equipped to serve the community during future storms.
GER3 is extremely grateful for our donors including The Lyford Cay Foundations, Discovery Land Company Foundation, One Bahamas Fund, UNICEF, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, All Hands and Hearts and others who made this work possible.
Watch the story of GER3's rehabilitation of this community cornerstone through the eyes of the local community, workers, and teachers who made it possible.
The GER3 team continues important recovery work in Honduras in response to Hurricanes Eta and Iota. The team is currently based in San Pedro Sula and will soon be transitioning to La Lima, a more remote community in the affected areas surrounding San Pedro Sula.
Over the holidays, the team worked in a community called La Canaán located along the river near La Lima. The community had been completely flooded and was left with more than 3 feet of mud in some areas. GER3 began work on the Calle Principal (main street) to create access to the community and allow residents to return home and begin the laborious process of cleaning the mud and debris from their homes. A backhoe and multiple dump trucks did the heavy lifting, while a team of GER3 local workers assisted the machinery to reach the mud near buildings and load the debris that was found in the street. GER3 was able to clear more than 80% of the Calle Principal, allowing more than 20 families to begin cleaning out their homes.
Prior to the intervention, the entirety of La Canaán had been displaced by the hurricanes. Of the 120 families, 35 are sheltered in an elementary school in La Lima and more than 80 are making do in make-shift dwellings along the divided highway that passes near their community.
GER3’s local team also worked in a community called La 23 de septiembre. Five local workers assisted machinery in clearing debris that residents had removed from their homes, clearing the Calle Principal. In one day, the team was able to clear the entire main street, more than 200 meters, restoring vehicle access to the street and allowing more than 30 families to have full access to their homes.
GER3 continues to assess damaged communities and develop program designs for prospective projects. One upcoming project will support an orphanage called Proniño. This orphanage takes in children who were previously living on the streets across Honduras. The campus in El Progreso is home to 22 boys and 7 girls aged 6-17. All were forced to evacuate as the storm arrived and none have been able to return as the flooding left behind mud in all of their buildings and eroded the driveway to the campus. The team is looking forward to kickstarting this high impact project in the coming weeks to allow the children to return.
Last week, GER3 led a high impact debris removal project at the Hospital Limeños de Corazon. The local team, including cash-for-work and machine operators, removed mud and debris from the parking lot, sidewalks, drainage ditches and surrounding streets to allow access to the hospital. The Hospital Limeños de Corazon was selected by GER3 because it is considered the highest priority health center by the municipality of La Lima. It was severely impacted by hurricanes Eta and Iota and left largely inaccessible due to the flooding, mud and debris. Hospital Limeños serves many rural villages in the region, with the next nearest hospital over 35 minutes away. In August, it opened its doors as a COVID-19 response clinic and also plans to transition to a general triage clinic and maternity ward once recovered from the hurricane damage. GER3's efforts will allow for immediate reconstruction efforts to begin.
This week, GER3 will also begin debris removal activities in the community of La Canaan in La Lima, while continuing to assess the greatest needs in the area.
Category 4 Hurricane Eta struck Honduras on November 3, 2020 as one of the worst hurricanes to hit Central American since Hurricane Mitch. With rainfall of up to 23 inches, the devastating storm took the lives of over 178 individuals. Just two weeks later on November 16, Hurricane Iota made landfall in the same region, adding an additional 10-20 inches of rainfall to the already hyper saturated lands, creating widespread flooding of over 200 square kilometers, and killing an additional 41 people while hundreds remain missing. Rainfall continues incessantly to this day exacerbating disaster conditions and impeding relief efforts.
Estimates are that 3,022,464 people in Honduras have been impacted by the storms with a high concentration of those affected in the department of Cortés. Tens of thousands of homes have been damaged or destroyed with bridges and roads no longer passable, impeding humanitarian access. Many communities remain isolated with difficultly in access and communication; recent reports suggest over 100,000 people are isolated across 69 communities. Many municipalities in Cortés have sustained total or partial disruptions in electricity and telecommunications systems. Water supply systems are damaged due to power outages or damage to infrastructure. Crops have been lost affecting access to income, good and services. Affected communities and are in need of immediate relief support to begin recovery efforts.
GER3 debris assessment team in San Pedro Sula
GER3’s Global Response Team (GRT) has been operating out of San Pedro Sula since November 21st with additional coordination based in Tegucigalpa since November 18th. Our GRT has conducted initial assessments in and around San Pedro Sula including Chamelecón, La Lima, San Antonio Cortes, El Progreso, and Choloma. These communities face significant relief and recovery challenges, particularly related to debris management; the significant debris is impeding the relief and recovery process by limiting access and making the initiation of recovery and rebuilding extremely difficult. While many have evacuated the area, many remain in their communities and are already attempting to begin the reconstruction process for their homes and local infrastructure.
Community-led relief and recovery programs will be tailored to meet needs of communities in the most affected areas of the Cortés Department. Programs will include in-depth community and household assessments, provision of items for shelter and clean-up kits, debris management (clearance and recycling), livelihoods opportunities (including the hiring of local persons to support the recovery), and green recovery and reconstruction mechanisms, including the possible introduction of off-grid/micro-grid electricity solutions and the reuse of recycled materials (including organic debris).
The proposed programs in Cortés Department will be structured, designed and continually adapted based on the following key program components:
GER3 is mobilizing local resources to support with immediate debris clearance, provide essential relief supplies to vulnerable communities and design sustainable recovery support. Simultaneously, GER3 is seeking donor funding to extend the impact of our work over the coming weeks and months. GER3’s initial funding to support this response effort is limited, so donations of any amount are extremely helpful and appreciated to support what we hope will develop into longer-term, impactful response programming.
Thank you in advance for your interest and support to GER3 and our response programs in Honduras.
