© IOM 2014  (Photo by Bernardino Jamisolamin II)

By Diana Ragub

Tacloban - Nine months after typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) destroyed her house, Josefina Jackson, 67, is glad to have moved out from the tent city where she has since been living.

“Mahagnaw na yana. Han hadi mapapaso man gud ha tent ngan waray seguridad (It is cooler now. It was very hot in the tents and there was lack of security),” she says.

Josefina’s family was one of the first 42 to be transferred from the tents and makeshift houses of Barangay Costa Brava, San Jose, Tacloban City, to the new temporary shelters in Barangay Tagpuro, a site developed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in collaboration with Operation Blessing, All Hands Volunteers, Samaritan’s Purse, the City Government and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).  The transitional shelter site, located in the northern part of the city, is one of several identified by the local government for communities currently living in high risk coastal areas. 

A total of 86 families from San Jose, the worst affected part of Tacloban, will be transferred to Tagpuro.  The movement to the new transitional site is in response to the need to provide those still living in tents and makeshift shelters with safer and more secure temporary shelter – especially with this year’s typhoon season now underway.

The transitional site at Tagpuro is the first in the Yolanda-hit areas to be constructed by IOM. Additional sites are still being developed in coordination with the local government of Tacloban, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery (OPARR).

Earlier this week, DSWD and IOM entered into a Memorandum of Agreement aimed at providing transitional shelter to a further 3,200 families affected by typhoon Yolanda in Eastern Visayas.

Meanwhile, Josefina expressed her gratitude to IOM, the local government and DSWD for the temporary shelter made out of amakan (bamboo) and nipa (palm leaf) roofing, where she can now finally have a comfortable sleep.

“Bisan man ini temporaryo pero maupay panhuna-hunaon nga secured kami ngan mas maupay na iton amon pangaturog nga waray ko gud matagamnan han mga nakalabay nga  bulan (This may be temporary, but we are more secure here and we now have the luxury of sleeping comfortably, which we didn’t have for the last nine months),” she said.

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Diana Ragub, IOM Communications with Communities Specialist in Tacloban