What Oxfam is doing
After rushing to deliver basic supplies—including drinking water, tarpaulins, shoes, clothes, mats, sleeping bags, and boxes of tinned fish—Oxfam is ramping up its emergency response to the tsunami disaster on the island of Samoa.
4 October 2009
After rushing to deliver basic supplies—including drinking water, tarpaulins, shoes, clothes, mats, sleeping bags, and boxes of tinned fish—Oxfam is ramping up its emergency response to the tsunami disaster on the island of Samoa.
Protecting public health is Oxfam’s top priority in the early emergency response, so staff are helping coordinate the international water and sanitation aid effort while providing clean water and hygiene kits, constructing and repairing latrines, and raising awareness about public health among those displaced by the tsunamis.
Oxfam is working closely with its Samoan partner organization Women in Business Development (WIBDI) in the early distributions; as the emergency eases, WIBDI will help people whose farms and small businesses were damaged or destroyed recover their incomes.
Oxfam is monitoring the disaster response on the nearby island nation of Tonga, where the Red Cross has not yet requested help from other aid providers.
