Tragedy struck the Philippines when Typhoon Odette swept through Northern Mindanao, the Visayas Regions and Palawan on December 16, 2021. Communities with organizations that are currently partners of the Women’s Resource Center of Visayas, Inc. (WRCV) in a project were not spared of its wrath. Of the seven communities, it is Sitio Lawis in South Poblacion, San Fernando that suffered the most from the typhoon. Whereas the other six communities had their houses partially damaged, in Sitio Lawis, all 74 families lost their houses when sea water rose and struck their houses. What remained were only piles of the remnants of the houses. Being a fishing community, many fishermen lost their small boats, their means of livelihood due to the typhoon.
They were evacuated to the South Poblacion Public Elementary School and stayed there until January 14, 2022 when they were able to reconstruct their houses in their community.
The Women’s Resource Center of Visayas, Inc., together with other development organizations solicited relief assistance from local and international humanitarian agencies, and distributed several hundreds of packs of relief goods to affected families in Barangays Tungkop, Tungkil, Calajoan and Tulay in Minglanilla, Barangay South Poblacion in San Fernando, and Barangays Sawang Calero and Suba in Cebu City.
Slowly, the communities residents struggled to find the means to reconstruct and restore their houses and buy essential things to replace those that were damaged or blown off by the typhoon. For the first weeks after the typhoon, for many poor families, every day was a struggle to find food, line up with empty gallons in selected places to get water, find housing materials, and look for whatever jobs were available. Affected families were already living in difficult situations before the typhoon struck and their conditions worsened in its aftermath.