Showing posts with label Tracey Horner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tracey Horner. Show all posts

Philippines Diary - Update from the field by Tracey Horner

04:18 – by 0
Update from a field visit in the Philippines by Tracey Horner, received on Tues. 14thJan., 14:04 London time.

"I finally arrived in Manila over 24 hours after I left my house. The Manila traffic is truly appalling during rush hour, which seems to last for much of the day. It reminded me of the fab BBC Programme "Toughest place to be a...", which featured in one episode a bus driver from London living in Manila and taking over the job of a 'Jeepney' driver for a week.  Funnily enough, the security briefing I received from the CARE office said that staff are not allowed to travel in Jeepney's due to safety concerns!  I ended up commuting back to the office in what Filipinos call 'tricycles', which are like a motor bike with a side car.  These are the same vehicles that Lendwithcare is helping to fund, with loans to some drivers who want to convert their 'tricycles' to less polluting LPG gas.  More details to follow next week when I meet with the company 'Clean Engines' to discuss further funding."

Tweet from Tracey on the day she arrived:
"This morning, I met with the CARE Philippines office to hear about how they are helping people who were affected by Typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda).  We discussed the challenges in scaling up an operation to cope with such a devastating natural disaster. [All updates from CARE's work, including in the Philippines can be read here.] It has been an interesting discussion, it is very easy to imagine how money is needed to buy and distribute food and shelter. But there is so much more involved to ensure NGO's like CARE respond to large disasters responsibly and provide accountability to all donors. The CARE Philippines office had to be scaled up from one person to 16 in a matter of weeks. Luckily CARE has very experienced senior staff who can be deployed in such circumstances and are managing the operation. CARE Philippines has worked with a local partner, Accord, for a long time and it is through this partnership and some new partnerships with some of the microfinance co-operatives Lendwithcare works through that CARE is responding to the disaster.  I will see more on-the-ground activity when I visit the Islands on Thursday, but I am told that CARE has been and is currently distributing food, providing shelter and discussing how people's livelihoods can be re-built.

As I am typing this diary entry, the BBC world weather forecast is showing extensive flooding in the areas I will be visiting.  I hope I am still going to be able to get around and gather the information that I know our Lendwithcare lenders are asking for about the entrepreneurs they have been supporting.

In preparation for my trip I have been reading the diaryof CARE aid worker, Sandra Bulling, who was one of the first to visit Tacloban, the worst affected city after typhoon Haiyan. I wonder with trepidation what I will see when I reach Tacloban approximately nine weeks after Sandra's visit."

Latest updates:

Tracey is experiencing a bad sea condition in the Philippines, which is preventing her from reaching the worst affected area of Tacloban. A true experience of how Filipinos are at the mercy of weather every day.

Video updates from Togo part two: collecting updates from the field

05:49 – by 0
After the first part of our video updates from Togo in July, the wait is finally over! Here is part two, at last.

In my first blog about my trip to Togo, I mentioned that visiting our microfinance partner, WAGES, was of particular interest to me because of CARE’s long-standing relationship with the institution. However, the main purpose of my trip was to respond to our lenders’ desire for more updates on how their loans have impacted on the lives of the people they have supported.  So I travelled to WAGES to provide the loan officers who work with Lendwithcare some further training on how to provide updates and more specifically how they can use film to bring these updates to life.

The training was led by professional film makers Fiona Molloy and Nik Wood (the people that also put together our fab TV ad!) and I have to say the loan officers really enjoyed learning the tricks of the trade from Fiona and Nik.  They particularly enjoyed learning how shooting different kinds of footage rather than simply zooming in and out can improve a film.

These three women had specific messages they wanted to pass on to the Lendwithcare lenders:


1.  Akouvi Amouzou – a fish monger from Togo. Akouvi told me “it feels good to be able to build my own house, hire staff to increase revenue and have money for when my children are sick”

2. Ama Nyabledzi – a market trader from Togo. Ama proudly announced when we visited her at her stall that “my palm oil is the sweetest on the market!”

3.  TchallaAdjo – a grain seller from Togo. At 69-years-old Tchalla had generated enough income from her business to build her own house, which I was lucky enough to be shown around

By Tracey Horner, Head of Lendwithcare.org

Read the final part of Tracey's video blog from Togo!

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