Fiji after Cyclone Winston: “I told my family to leave everything”

Tiloko, his wife Leba and their children
© UNICEF Pacific/2016/Sokhin

By Neisau Tuidraki, UNICEF Pacific

In Yaqeta village, Yasawa Islands, 39-year-old Leba sits on a mat in the place where her family house stood, before it was destroyed by Tropical Cyclone Winston. She is joined by her husband Tiloko and their five children Adi, Makereta, Emosi, Waisake and Vasemasa, aged from 16 to just one.

“On the night of the cyclone we all stayed at home,” Leba says. “The wind got stronger and stronger, and then the breadfruit tree fell on top of our house and destroyed it.”

A helping hand for an 8-month-old survivor

8-month-old Nichola is one of the first babies in Vanuatu to receive nutrition supplements

 through UNICEF following Cyclone Pam. We visit him to see what difference they’re making.
UNICEF Pacific/2015/Berthe

I met Nichola for the first time when a nurse measured the circumference of his arm at Pango Community Centre in Port Vila, Vanuatu. I was relieved to see that the colour of the special measuring tape was green, meaning that Nichola wasn’t dangerously underweight.

The tent that brought children back to school

Joana and Daisly used to miss school regularly before Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu. 
The unique experience of learning in a tent has brought them back. 
UNICEF Pacific/2015/Berthe

When Joana and Daisly share their experience of Category 5 Cyclone Pam, I can hear the horror of that night in their voices – voices that remind me of my two young sons and our own night of terror.

Seven-year-old Joana is from a small community in Port Vila. She was home with her younger sister and her parents when the cyclone hit Vanuatu with devastating force on 13 March 2015. She tells me the wind was so strong they had to shelter in a nearby shop after the cyclone ripped the roof of their house off. Fear still echoes in her voice when recalling the events of that night six months ago.

600 children can resume their education after UNICEF school supplies reach Cyclone-hit Tongoa Island in Vanuatu

UNICEF Education emergency supplies arrive in Tongoa
on the 23rd March. UNICEF Pacific/2015/Kyaw

600 children on Tongoa Island, one of the 22 islands in Vanuatu hardest hit by Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Pam, have received school supplies from UNICEF that will allow them to return to school. 

Khin Maung Kyaw is an Education Field Officer from UNICEF Myanmar, who has been deployed to Vanuatu following a request from Vanuatu’s Ministry of Education and through the National Disaster Management Office to assist with the emergency response. Although this is his first time to Vanuatu he is no stranger to emergency repsonse including Cyclone Nargis which badly affected Myanmar in 2008. He tells the story of UNICEF’s efforts to get essential school supplies to children on remote Tongoa Island.

Doing our part in Disaster Preparedness

By Karen Allen, UNICEF Pacific Representative

Girl paddling canoe, Malaita © UNICEF Pacific/2013/Allen

The UN, Governments, and NGOs are all about Disaster Preparedness these days, and rightly so. "Get Ready. Disasters Happen" is the slogan for a UNICEF Pacific disaster preparedness package of assistance to disaster prone areas.

Last week I was in the Solomon Islands talking to people involved with disaster preparedness and response. While impressed with our systems and knowledge for disaster risk mitigation, I was also reminded that we have to recognize the limits and really commit to helping people quickly and effectively when disaster strikes. Jacob, a UNICEF WASH staff, told me,

UNICEF Pacific Emergency Assesment

Emergency assessment student focus group discussion - social protection, in Tavua, Western side of Fiji that was affected by the March floods.

Torrential rains caused by Tropical Depression TD17F caused widespread flooding on 30 March 2012 in particularly the Western Division of Fiji. The floods killed four people and temporarily displaced 15,000 people, causing damages to infrastructure, schools, homes, businesses and agriculture. With power and electricity disrupted for days, at least 150,000 people were affected. A State of Natural Disaster was declared for parts of the west of Fiji.

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