As you may know, Typhoon Haiyan destroyed many of our staff’s houses and we set up a fundraiser to help them rebuild. So that you can see our progress and so we can have proper documentation ourselves, we have done our best to keep photographic records of before and after. Take a look at some of these photos and see the tremendous help that your donations have been!
These do not show the full extent of the initial damage, as the “before” photos were taken at least 3 weeks after the typhoon when some rebuilding work and temporary patching had already started. People made makeshift shelters from all sorts of things: debris salvaged from their own or other destroyed buildings, materials from the dive shop that we had in stock or came from our damaged buildings, and also tarpaulin that we bought from donations that was much needed to protect not only from the rain but from the relentless sun that was beating down before the palm tree fronds had had the chance to regrow.
Madeline Before
Madeline has worked for us in Oscars since it opened, 6 years ago. Her house was completely gone – there was absolutely nothing left. This simple lumber frame was what her husband had managed to put together so far.
Madeline After
Maricris before
Maricris is a waitress at Oscar’s and has worked for us for a few years. She has a newborn baby so we are especially happy that she was one of the first to get her home repaired 🙂
Maricris After
Dodi before
Dodi is our man around the equipment room and you have probably met him if you have ever checked out equipment from us. There is even a picture of him in a dress at work lurking around on facebook 🙂
Dodi after
We did find Dodi taking shelter at the dive shop one night when he had a lovely new home to go to. But I guess as it was raining quite heavily at the time, we’ll forgive him 😉
Hilbert before
Hilbert is a great example of someone who’s home had to be rebuilt from scratch using the materials you provided.
Hilbert after
Dodong before
Dodong has worked for us for 8 years and is the Boat Captain of Amy.
Dodong after
Ondo before
Ondo has worked for us for 8 years and is one of our senior boat crew.
Ondo after
All of our staff now has enough materials to complete their houses. Some are still building and more homes are being finished every day. Over $20,000 has so far been spent on rebuilding homes, and we will now be targeting those most in need of housing on the island.
Special thanks to Matt Bjerregaard for some of the “Before” shots and Stephen Tapply for the “After” shots. More to come as they get finished!
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