Updates from Student Volunteers
/Friday, May 8
Surendra A
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1. Today Bhuwan and I Visited Khokana to have a quick assessment. We found that out of 900 HH 700 are either collapsed or partially collapsed or not suitable to live in. Mr. Gangalal (9841409777), green t-shirt in photo who used to be a good friend when I worked in one irrigation project in 2002 AD. Gangalal would prefer CGI sheet rather than the plastic sheets. However, whatever they receive from any donor, they would centrally collect and distribute in single gate system. They are found more transparent at village level as they wrote the list of materials received so far (see photo). Also we met some of the government officials who were doing need assessment on site.
2. In the evening visited one of the house holds victimized by this earthquake. House is completely collapsed and I handed over Cash of Rs 0,000.00
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Hitesh K
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1. One of the DW Employees, Meenu K, had made a request for help sometime back. She seemed very neat in her preparations as she had made some local contacts. She had list of medicines and today we decided to visit the place. The place where we passed by was past the old Bhakatapur and there was not a single house that stood tall. The alley was shut.
When we reached the place, it was drizzling. We went to first camp and started distributing medicines. The makeshift camp housed around 200 people and had one common kitchen. We distributed medicines – the ones that had run out of stock in many places in area around Bhaktapur. Since she was aware of it, we decided to buy the medicines from Kathmandu Medical Hospital. These were ORS, Betadines, Pain Killers, Cough Syrups, Sanitary Pads, Face masks. Even at KMC’s pharmacy we could not find all the medicines that was on the list.
The two places where we distributed medicines thankfully had ladies who were kind of nurses / CMAs. We have their contact numbers but Meenu said she will follow up on regular basis. So we did not have much explaining to do. One amazing site was to see a boy jump up and shout ‘Betadine Aayo’. He had his toe caught in between the door when the earthquake happened. The total cost of medicines distributed was Rs 56,995.44.
Dai, apparently handing out medicines was lot more appreciated by the people. They had very little idea for they have not faced the need for such medicines for most of their lives, so they said. Also, Bhaktapur being hard hit by the earthquake, they said even if they were given cash they still would not have been able to get hold of medicines that we shared with them.
As discussed in the meeting yesterday, from now on, we will distribute cash directly.
Both Facebook and Blog of DWSWN has been updated.
RAM UPDATE
1. The four members of the team left and joined the group in Dhuskun. I got an update from Shyam Sonepa, who is in constant contact with the team, that team met up rest of the team members at the village. They have been well received by the villagers.
2. Niraj Gorkhali, Ex- Budhanilkantha and Ex-D2, donated 300 loaves of bread for distribution by DWSWN and they have been sent to Dhuskun, Piskar, Tekanpur and Tauthali villages in Sindhupalchowk with Paul Marseca from Remote Area Medical (RAM) USA. A total of 15 medical professionals from RAM, in coordination with DWSWN, are currently in the hardest-hit district for medical relief operations. Since the vehicle did not have a tarp, they were provided with 1 tarp from the stock so that their goods could be safely wrapped.
Plans for tomorrow
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1. Record missing videos for day 5,6,8,9,10 and 11. The scripts are ready. I wanted either Ruby or Bhawana to come do the recording. Bhawana reported that she was not well whereas Ruby had to attend some puja. This was on top of my priority list but could not make it. I have to make them ready tomorrow somehow or the other.
2. Surendra dai plans to leave for Dhading.
3. Manish M and his team want to visit Sindhupalchowk. They have made a request to give a cash of Rs 30,000.00 to one of his team members, Subash Kunwar, who lost his mother. Also they have been approached by a local school public which is badly damaged in that area.For that they have requested a sum of Rs 20,000.00. Since around 8-10 of the team members want to go to the place. The request has been made for the office vehicle but that’s not something we are allowing now. So could we say reimburse 70% of their travel fare if they decide to rent a vehicle? I am told that members of his core team want to go offer condolences to him?