HelpAge International: Day 9, Saturday

We departed from Dhaka on Thursday night and travelled to Pirojpur with Mr. Shah Chowdhury, who works on RIC’s education programme and John Cobb, the photographer. After several hours on the road and a couple of hours ferry ride, we arrived late in the evening at a government guesthouse and met with Mr. Sheikh Moinur Rahman, the internal auditor, who briefed us and then we planned out the field trip.

When we arrived at our accommodation, I was given the VIP suite, which had the only working electric light in the entire building and I shared it with the mother of all cockroaches!

The next day was an early start and we headed out to RIC’s office to meet the team. The office was a hive of activity. Staff have been working around the clock to receive goods, prepare relief packs, verify beneficiary lists and organise distributions. Staff from the Dhaka office have been coming down on rotation to oversee and support the local team. Some colleagues have gone without sufficient sleep for two weeks running.

We drove to Nazirpur to see three back to back distributions of the Help the Aged/HelpAge International relief packs and DFID funded blankets. By the time we reached the RIC office, people were already lining up outside, patiently waiting for the distribution to begin. It was immediately apparent that the operation is well organised. Behind the office was a warehouse/store. Relief items were brought to the front for distribution by ‘human chain’. More than 1300 packs were distributed in total.

The process is quite comprehensive. Older People’s Associations in the area were involved in identifying the most vulnerable Older Person headed households in collaboration with RIC staff. These lists were crosschecked and approved by the local authorities.

Beneficiaries were given tokens and told the date, time and venue of the distributions. Those older people who were frail or had mobility problems brought younger family members or friends along to carry the relief items and were served at the head of the queue. Each person had to present his or her token and then signed for the relief, usually by fingerprint and then he or she received the goods and left for home. The oldest lady I saw was 105 years old!

The first two distributions went really smoothly and quickly. The third one, which took place later in the afternoon became a bit more rowdy. Word had spread that a distribution was going down and of course many people in need turned up. RIC staff and the local authorities handled the situation well. This illustrates the challenge of ‘targeting’ vulnerable groups when everyone is in dire need of basic assistance. I have often experienced similar situations in other emergencies.

One of the reasons here is that Pirojpur district is underserved which is why the Help the Aged/HelpAge International relief packs were particularly welcome and timely.

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