International Funds to Assist Belize Post Lisa

According to Horace Glaze, Disaster Management Coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent, an additional half-a-million Belize dollars is being made available to the disaster relief effort.  Those funds have been earmarked by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in Geneva, Switzerland.

Horace Glaze, Disaster Management Coordinator, Red Cross

Horace Glaze

“Pretty much, we have allocated two hundred and fifty-seven thousand Swiss Francs in support of the operations.  Primarily, that will be focused on non-food items, you know, stocks for comfort and so on for those that have been affected.  We’ll also be looking at what we call cash and voucher programs to support.  You know, one of the things that we want to do is to make sure that persons receive actual cash to provide their own resources and support.  It’s part of what the movement, the Red Cross movement looks at as being able to provide more dignified support to persons when they are able to purchase directly the things that they need.  Part of the response, under that program that program we call it the DREF, which is the Disaster Response Emergency Fund.  Part pf that, we’ll also be looking at water sanitation and hygiene support, both from the point of view of providing hygiene products, as well as communication about safer hygiene practices and so on, especially now where some areas are still affected by floodwaters, in terms of water still settled in communities and the possibility of increased mosquito and other waterborne diseases.  So that’s what our focus is on.  We’ll be deploying two additional staff to support directly with the hands-on operations of the national society.  The two positions we call an operations officer who is going to lead our support from the IFRC and a cash and voucher officer who will take the national society through the process of developing a program to do that cash assistance to persons affected.  We’re targeting roughly a thousand families for this support, across those three major components that I mentioned.  And so, I’m here to get that process going with the national society and the assigned operational officers and bring of course where needed, the rest of the support from other officers at the regional level.”