Thank you to those that supported this distribution.
Quick background:
Due to climate change Afghanistan has been experiencing very harsh weather that has resulted in heavy storms, flash floods and severe weather events.
On the 11th of May 2024, Baghlan province in Afghanistan was hit with heavy flash flooding, this weather event was so extreme that whole villages were wiped out. When we visited we had not seen anything like this before. Reports indicated more than 700 people had been killed across 3-4 villages, 5 districts of Baghlan were impacted and 200 people were still under rubble. The death toll later had been reported at over 1000 people.
Only a few weeks prior major flooding had impacted 20 provinces across Afghanistan, but the impact in Baghlan was worse than we had seen.
Timeframe/Date: 11th – 20th May 2024
Solution:
Revive Afghanistan NZ is a registered charity based out of Auckland, New Zealand, we are always raising funds through our Emergency Relief campaign, funds are allocated to an Emergency Relief fund, this is utilised for our emergency relief efforts.
What was Revive Afghanistans response to Flood relief?
At the time due to the recent flooding across the country, majority of the Non profits, NGOS, charities were already stretched thin across the country, at this stage we were still raising funds for flood relief.
As we were getting updates from contacts on the ground, it was clear the situation was alot worse than what was initially thought, there were whole villages cut off the provincial capital, we found that due to the flooding happening near evening time that helicopter rescues were struggling to see survivors, we right away planned our response, the route from Kabul going North to Baghlan was also blocked from landslides, for this reason we went from Kabul to Mazar and then travelled east from Mazar to Baghlan.
How did Revive Afghanistans help with Flood relief?
While asessing the situation in Baghlan, we were informed of a district which was 4 hours away (8 hours return) from the provincial capital and how no one had visited them yet.
Revive Afghanistan was the first non profit/ charity to arrive in the Burki district, the aftermath of the floods and the extent of the impact was unexpected, whole villages had been washed away by the floods, where homes once stood all we saw was mud. We took a few days to conduct our surveying and on our last day we saw another charity also turn up to start their surveying.
Families were in need of food, shelter, water, and basic necessities. People were drinking dirty water from creeks just to fulfil their thirst.
Normally with our emergency response we try our best to provide families with what they need most first, and allocate either a Food Pack or our Emergency NFI (Non Food Item) Kits. In this situation due to the complete devastation and families not even having access to clean water, we provided 100 families each with both Large Food packs and Emergency NFI kits (medium).
This gave families large support packs that provided them with food for a month, water, ways to cook, ways to clean, ways to store water allowing them to focus on other things.
Emergency Relief Packs included:
1) Emergency Food Packs
Food packs included items to give families access to food that would cover a family for 1 month up to 2 months
Packs included the following items:
- 50KG Large Flour
- 14KG Rice
- 7KG Sugar
- 7KG Beans
- 7KG Chickpeas
- 5L Oil
- 5K Macaroni
- 1KG Green Tea
- 1KG Salt
- 20 Packs of Matches
2) Emergency NFI Kit (Medium):
NFI Kits cover key things families need after losing everything, these are generally items that are overlooked or not thought of until a natural disaster hits.
Packs included the following items:
– x1 Pressure Cooker
– x1 Gas Cylinder
– x1 Set Cooking Pot
– x1 Teapot
– x1 Water Thermos
– x1 Wash Set
– x1 Large Serving Plate
– x2 Cooking Spoon
– x1 Set of Plates (4 included)
– x1 set of Tea Cups (12 included)
The situation was very dire.
Many do not see the danger when it comes to natural disaster, alot of times when floods or earthquakes hit, it happens again a few days later, while completing our large distribution to 100 families, reports started to come in that another flash flood was hitting other districts, this resulted in us having to ask all the beneficiaries to quickly pack their items and get to higher ground.
After completing our distribution, we left the district and headed back to the provincial capital of Baghlan, we were later informed that many of the roads that we had just passed hours before were now completely flooded. The other charity that was conducting their surveying while we were distributing ended up being stuck there for days due to the flooding. We were also informed of other large charities being stuck in Ghor and Faryab provinces.
Our Distribution details:
We distributed these Large Emergency Relief packs to 100 families that were most in need. We had a large distribution in Burki district.
Details of costs during this time
Cost of a Food package: 5200 Afghani (81 NZD)
Cost of Medium NFI Kit : 5600 Afghani (88 NZD)
Total for an Emergency Relief Pack: 10,800 Afghani (270 NZD/160 USD)
Total Distribution costs: $27,000 NZD
Going forward
We need your help to support families in need when in comes to Emergency Relief, with our Emergency relief fund, you can donate at any time to families in need, this way when earthquakes or floods occur we have a fund available to quickly respond with emergency relief efforts.
If you’d like to donate to Revive Afghanistans Emergency relief efforts please, visit our donate page and select the project you’d like to donate to.
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Revive Afghanistan NZ flood relief efforts in Baghlan
Revive Afghanistan NZ in Baghlan, Afghanistan
The impact of floods in Baghlan, May 2024
How Revive Afghanistan helped in Emergency Relief Efforts 2024
Revive Afghanistan NZ
