By
Dominic I. Sanchez
ZAMBOANGA
CITY – The
Communications Working Group (CWG) composed of government agencies and
non-government organizations on Tuesday (April 14) visited the Masepla
Transitory Site in barangay Mampang to hear from internally displaced persons
(IDPs) about their needs while staying at the site.
Shiela
Covarrubias, City Hall Public Information Officer said that such discussions
with the IDPs are needed to help government and the humanitarian actors provide
a needs-based intervention to help IDPs while in transit. “It would be best if
we heard from them about their situation so in turn, we can share what we have
learned afterwards to the different clusters concerned,” she said.
“This
is also a way of getting feedback from the current services given to them,”
Covarrubias added.
In
Masepla, the IDPs were broken down into sectors such as youth, senior citizens
and persons with disabilities, mothers, fathers, and leaders. Interviewers from
the CWG including college student-volunteers asked a set of questions based on
the Accountability to Affected Population (AAP) focused group discussion.
Among
the items discussed were their access to basic services, communication needs,
safety and security, protection issues, child protection, women’ needs, durable
solutions and others.
It was
learned that the among the pressing needs of the IDPs in Masepla include the
lack of electricity, the distance of the water supply, need for livelihood
interventions, the distance of the actual site from the town center where IDPs
earn a living and where their children go to school, and the need for an
emergency medical outpost.
“NapakalayongMaseplasapaaralanngmgabata,
sana may school bus (Masepla is very far from school, we hope there will be a
school bus),” said one of the IDPs.
Meanwhile,
for IDPs like Aben who was one of those recently transferred from the
Grandstand said that Masepla is a far better place than the Grandstand. “Mas
maayosdito, komportable at peaceful (It’s better here, more comfortable and
peaceful),”Aben shared.
Aben
shares that they have experienced only minor security problems like thefts, but
the thief, who was not an IDP was apprehended by volunteer peacekeepers who are
IDPs themselves.
However,
he wishes that he could return to his home in Sta. Catalina soon.
“Malayolangtalaga kame dito, at sanamakakabalikna kame saaminglugar (this place
is very far and I hope that we can already return home),” he said.
Aben
is one of the thousands of displaced persons who are still waiting for
permanent shelters under the Zamboanga City Roadmap to Recovery and
Reconstruction (Z3R) program, after his home was destroyed during the Zamboanga
siege of 2013.