Help Evacuated Victims of Residential Fires

TIMELINE

(This is based on the flow in the Philippines and might can be slightly different in other countries)

WHAT TO DONATE?

Commonly donated goods are hygiene kits, drinking water, milk for infants, non-perishable food like: canned goods, packed snacks, rice, biscuits, dried fish, etc., blankets, pillows, clothing, medicines, and vitamins, toiletries, and sleeping mats. The list can extend to perishable food as well, however these are to be distributed immediately to avoid spoilage.

PREPARING YOUR DONATIONS

Donations are packed if you’re proactively helping a community of fire victims. These are usually packed in boxes or wrapped in taped plastic making sure these are also sanitized.

HOW?

Step 1 – Contact the local government

• When you hear or see that there’s fire going on in a town, you can immediately contact the town hall the next day to offer donations for the victims. The contact numbers can be usually found on the District’s Facebook page, or the District Chairman’s Facebook page. And if you can’t find a number to call, you may message these pages directly.

• In the event that a local district office cannot be contacted directly, there are websites for various or city halls which has direct lines to the social welfare department.

• Basically, if the fire happened in a district in your city, you’d contact the area affected first, and as a last resort, get in the with the City Hall.

Step 2 – Sending your donations

• By contacting the local government, you will get further information about the needs of the evacuees, and of course, their location.

• After the incident has been neutralized, evacuees are transferred to a designated evacuation center. This may be a covered basketball court, which most areas have, or it can be a public elementary school. Going back to speak with the local government office, you now have these details and have talked about how the donations can be sent.

• Usually, it’s easier for everyone if you’d be able to go there yourself with the donations at hand. Most NGOs arrive in multiple vans, or even trucks, full of boxes with the goods or sacks of rice, but as an individual, you need not be shy with handing over a single box arriving in a motorcycle, or tricycle.

• If you’d still wish to hand over the goods in the comforts of your home, a metropolitan area has various of couriers willing to hand over your donations to the evacuation centers. Of course this comes for a price, and you’ll have to consider the exact location of the center.

Step 3 – Distribution of the donations

• Once you’ve arrived at the location, you must reach out to a representative who will receive the donation, document and log it for their records. The process may differ for each city.

• Your donation is then kept in a stockpile which will be distributed at intervals together with the other items.

• As you can see, people line up to obtain their piece. The donations are distributed equally by either staff or officials, or the social welfare team. The victims are sometimes visited by local politicians who are also reaching out for assistance.

Step 4 – Spread Awarenes

• So what do you do after donating yourself? Then you go out and spread the love. Other than mainstream media, you can start to spread the news with your family and friends. Next would be social media.

• A lot of people are busy these days and there are a few who are about proactively seeking to help the community. But when you let them know these incidents are happening, human nature should start kicking in — the nature to help those in need.

• Most of the time in a fire incident, there would be a lot affected and your donations, even in small amounts.