Ms. Cherrie Atilano CEO and President of AGREA Agricultural Systems International happens to be a supporter of NVC. She told Ms. Millie about World Central Kitchens (WKC), a group that AGREA had been working with to supply food produce and rice to earthquake-stricken communities in Cebu. WCK has more resources than NVC and would be able to provide long-term support. Ms. Cherrie offered to submit our network in Cebu to WCK for possible inclusion and luckily, they agreed to do so. So, we endorsed our ground partners in Cebu to WCK and, confident that the people we had served were in good hands, we closed our Cebu earthquake relief operations.
When we wrapped up our relief distribution operations in Northern Cebu, we still had some donated cash earmarked for Cebu earthquake relief operations on hand. We decided to use this amount to provide psycho-social support for some of the families we served in the area. We began by seeking out a group of Cebu-based psychologists trained to provide the right psychosocial support. Fortunately, we were able to find such a group. On October 23, a team from NVC met online with psychologist Kirk Patrick Castro and Lenbi Laborte (a representative of CENVISNE, a network of Cebu-based NGOs). A big thank you Erica Martin, NVC’s “on-call” psychologist, for arranging the meeting.
