Bengaluru, India. In August 2019 once again India saw some of its parts affected by the monsoon fury. Like in 2018, the people suffered a heavy loss of property and even some lost their lives. In this hour of tragedy and human need, Province of Bangalore came forward to extend the helping had. Different mission centers carried out the relief work at different affected areas.
By Christu Bhavan Mission at Bhattiprolu, Andhra Pradesh
Though Andhra Pradesh was not affected by the flood on a large scale, a certain areas were bore the brunt of flood waters. Juvvalapalem area in Bhattiprolu mission of Claretians was one of such area. As the water engulfed the area for longer time, it resulted in damage and loss of agricultural crops. People could not go for their daily work, thus resulting in loss of livelihood.
As an immediate assistance, Claretian Missionaries came to the rescue of people. On 24 August 2019, we organized and distributed essential food material to 315 families. During our relief work, local MLA, Mr Merugu Nagarjuna, visited the area and appreciated the efforts of missionaries. Now our focus is to help those families, especially our parishioners, whose houses are damaged due to the floods.
By Infant Jesus Mission at Athani, Karnataka
The recent flood which devastated the north Karnataka districts has caused a lot of misery, pain and loss of many things in the lives of thousands of people of the region. It was time to act together to help these helpless people. Infant Jesus Mission at Athani along with a few volunteers plunged in to this crisis situation to render humanitarian service of providing relief materials which was most urgent according to the situation. We visited many of the affected areas of Athani and took a stock of the situation and found thousands of family houses fully submerged, some are even washed away in wild rage and furry of the water.
As an immediate help, our mission decided to help the victims who returned to their houses after a long stay in relief camps. Therefore we arranged and distributed relief materials, mostly food, as a support to restart their lives. We have provided relief material kit to so many affected families. It will need serious planning and efforts to bring back these affected people to normal life.
By Claret Niketan Community at Belagavi, Karnataka
Belagavi District of Karnataka was one of the severely affected area by the flood and remained marooned under water for longer time. The water-logging was so severe that most of the roads were flooded and blocked. This created serious health hazard as garbage was accumulated in residential areas. Relief work was hampered as it continued to rain for weeks together.
On 11 August Claret Niketan, our Minor Seminary community, along with the staff of Hope Recovery center and volunteers from Kerala Christian Forum organized a clean-up drive to get rid of the garbage accumulated on the streets of Peeranwadi and its neighborhood. During the day long work, our young seminarians showed real courage and missionary enthusiasm in time of need under the leadership of their formator. The efforts were appreciated by the people as it portrayed humanitarian concern.
By Project Vision Centre at Wayanad, Kerala
As the flood tragedy struck once again, Bangalore Claretians responded immediately. Thousand four hundred families were provided with a food kit for their survival for ten days through Project Vision in the name of its intervention called Bangalore Cares for Kerala on 24-25 August in the flood ravaged Wayanad district of Kerala.
As floods have affected large number of lives in several parts of the country covering Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Assam, Kerala was in a greater problem due to the fact it was getting affected second year in a row. People who had lost everything were just getting back to their normal life, stitching together pieces of whatever was left, when floods hit again in the same fatal month of August this year. Project Vision which was just exiting from its disaster intervention since last one year, again moved to action immediately.
Project Vision volunteers were immediately in the field to identify the needs of the affected people. A total of 255,051 people were in the 1341 relief camps across Kerala. Fatalities amounted to 120, mostly due to landslides in Malappuram and Wayanad Districts.
Wayanad was the district of our focus of work and the district had 196 relief camps in which 35,878 people had taken refuge in. Unlike the previous year, a great organizational strength was shown by the government which ensured good care in most of the relief camps. Therefore our focus shifted to the people when they return home and to those who did not have to go to the relief camps, but had lost everything. They also did not have any job and income to sustain their families. As the immediate help, it was decided to provide them with a food kit of twenty essential items for them to sustain at least for a few days. The essential items were provided by various generous donors and organizations.
