ChildFund Papua New Guinea has deployed an emergency response team to support hundreds of children and their families in Papua New Guinea affected by recent floods, and is working with the PNG Government and other agencies to assist in the response to the earthquake that recently impacted the Southern Highlands area.
More than 600 hygiene kits, each consisting of 10L collapsible container, water purification tablets, soap, oral hygiene products and a water storage bucket, have been distributed to families affected by the floods, with more to be delivered in the coming days.
More than 600 households and families from communities in Veifa’a, Aipiana and Apanaipi in Kairuku, Central Province, have been affected by the floods, which hit in January.
Heavy and continuous rain caused the St Joseph River to flood its river bank into nearby villages, damaging schools and homes, as well as the Veifa’a health centre.
Drinking water sources have been contaminated, and several cases of water-borne diseases have been reported.
ChildFund’s support in the distribution of hygiene kits will help prevent water-borne diseases in communities.
“ChildFund is responding to the floods in Central Province by providing vital water and sanitation support to the affected communities,” says ChildFund CEO Nigel Spence. “Our focus is to ensure children and their families in the flood-affected communities are safe and supported.”
ChildFund is also assisting in the emergency response to the earthquake and aftershocks in PNG’s Southern Highlands. An emergency staff member has been deployed to work with the government emergency response team.
In January last year, Nakurka, her husband and their eight children were hoping rain would arrive and break the drought in Kenya’s Turkana region.
In March, however, Nakurka lost her husband and seven-year-old son, and the worst drought in years showed no sign of abating.
“This drought has been the worst experience in my life,” Nakurka says.
Drought has always been a threat for families in Turkana. Sharing a border with South Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda, the region is harsh and unyielding.
Yet historically, while rainfall patterns are among the lowest in the country, the annual short and long rains have been mostly reliable, ensuring there is just enough water to survive the difficult conditions.
However, this changed in recent years. Drought in 2014, followed by poor and below average rates of rainfall in 2015 and 2016 has led to the critical situation in the region today. What was once a 10-year cycle of drought in Kenya, now appears to be occurring every other year.
Nakurka’s family started getting desperate in February last year. Her husband gathered some friends and their livestock, and left in search of greener pastures on the Ethiopian border.
Three weeks later Nakurka learnt he had been killed.
As she grieved her husband’s death, the conditions in Turkana worsened. Food became so scarce that many people in Turkana resorted to eating poisonous fruits (locally known as sorich), which are fatal if they’re not carefully prepared.
“If you don’t boil them well for over 12 hours, you can die,” Nakurka says.
“We would eat at night before going to bed. You know if you don’t eat something before you sleep, then it becomes impossible to sleep.
But the food was not enough for Nakurka’s seven-year-old son, who was severely malnourished when he died a month after his father.
Nakurka believes all eight of her children would have died without ChildFund’s Australian donors, who helped provide food, water and essential healthcare to struggling families.
