Report from Oxfam America, Southeast
Asia Regional Office
(SEARO), Phnom Penh,
October 20, 2000
Prepared by Rosemary Morte
Oxfam America supports local community
organizations in poor communities that bring essential resources, skills,
and opportunities to people without opportunities. Oxfam has been supporting
the work of the Cambodia Health Committee (CHC) since 1994. Today we are
working in partnership to help flood victims with immediate relief, and
we will work together to help Cambodians recover their homes and livelihoods
after the floods have subsided.
After the most disastrous floods to hit Cambodia for 70 years, local non-governmental organizations face the task of helping thousands of displaced families rebuild their lives. The Cambodian Health Committee (CHC) is an Oxfam America partner that normally works in the fields of health and micro-credit but now has the added task of providing relief to flood victims in the worst-hit provinces in the south of the country. CHC Executive Director, Dr Chiv Bunthy, has just returned from an assessment of the situation.
Unexpected emergency
"Our provincial staff were taken by surprise by the speed at which the water rose," admits Dr Bunthy. "Suddenly they had an emergency on their hands. People were being forced to evacuate to higher ground as their homes filled with water -- many shacks just collapsed. There was an urgent need for relief supplies.
"We were extremely grateful when Oxfam America responded promptly to our request for help so we were quickly able to provide homeless villagers with plastic sheets for shelter, rice and canned fish.
"At the same time, we tried to keep our normal health and micro-credit programmers running.
Staff were amazed by the commitment of credit-scheme members who travelled in by boat to pay the interest due on their loans, some making extremely hazardous journeys through dangerous, fast-flowing water. Not one family has defaulted, and I think this is because the very poor people we work with value the CHC scheme and see us as a caring organization that really has their welfare at heart."
Lessons learned
CHC has also seen its health education program bear fruit. "With an ocean of floodwater as far as the eye could see, there was no possibility of travelling by road out to the health centers and TB hospitals that we support. Even the major highway between Cambodia and Vietnam was impassable," reports Dr Bunthy.
"CHC staff had to travel by boat to find evacuees in encampments they'd set up around their pagodas and individual families who were still clinging to their homes. The staff were delighted to find no cases of cholera, and I'm sure this is because of the high levels of awareness that our health education program has instilled in the villagers.
There were many health problems, of course. Where people and animals are crowded together the ground is absolutely filthy. It's too muddy to wear shoes so hookworm and other parasitic infections are unavoidable. Staff treated both adults and children for diarrhea, skin diseases and parasites.
"And of course by now there's no firewood left at all to boil water -- on my trip I saw families trying to burn the remains of their bamboo houses to fuel charcoal stoves -- so one of our priorities was to provide water containers together with chlorine tablets of exactly the right strength to purify that quantity of water. I'm worried about the possibility of typhoid in the future," adds Dr Bunthy, "but we are doing all we can to prevent an outbreak."
Planning for the return
CHC is now planning a rehabilitation program for flood victims. "Provided we find the funding, we plan to issue loans at a very low rate of interest to give people a real chance to get back on their feet and re-establish their income-earning activities once they can return to their homes. Of course, we can't offer loans to everyone," points out Dr Bunthy, "so we'll be concentrating on helping existing credit-scheme members plus any other very poor villagers identified by the village leaders."
"On the practical side, we'll help people repair their bamboo houses and -- vitally important -- we'll organize the cleaning and decontamination of wells so villagers have access to their own supply of fresh drinking water as soon as possible. We'll also be providing rice seed and fertiliser so farmers can sow a new rice crop as soon as the land has drained sufficiently. And we hope to provide extra food for some of the most vulnerable people we work with -- the TB patients in the hospitals and those taking part in our TB home-care program.
"At the health centers, we expect to have to deal with many more cases than usual. I think there will be a longer-term problem with parasites -- some parasite infestations aren't immediately apparent -- so we'll be stocking up with anti-parasitic drugs in particular.
"It's going to be hard work," says Dr Bunthy, "but I have a great team and I know that as long as we can find the funding we need they'll find the energy to add these extra tasks to our program."