(Text:
Olaf Wündrich, Fotos: (c) 2010 Alberto Araneda)
At February 27, 2010 mother Earth violently shaked in Chile.
We had an Earthquake of magnitud 8.8.
Following this seismic event we decided to personally help some
affected persons, in a fast and efficient way.
Who is "We": all the people which are connected to the projects listed
below, might it be trough the donation of money or goods, or as well
the donation of this webspace
(thank you Franky from www.cnfsz.eu)
or writing and organizing the links between Europe and Chile are Olaf
Wündrich and Jammie
Valdivia - a German-Chilean couple living in Coyhaique - about 1000km
South of the epicentre of the occured quake.
We got to know about the Earthquake and following Tsunami only through
the media or through friends and aquaintances
We wanted to help the ones who were not as lucky as we and who were
severely affected by the earthquake or Tsunami.
So the "We" referrs to a network of friends, colleagues, aquaintances
and all those who simply are helping Chile here and now.
Why personal help, targeted to single persons or small groups of
people? Aren't there official Organizations who help and bundle all
the efforts?
Our goal was to support those persons affected who we know personally
or who have been identified as being extra vulnerable because of the
Earthquake/Tsunami. And who don't have yet gotten the urgently
necessary support through other means.
- We didn't want bureaucracy when giving,
- we did want that donations reach the targeted project a full 100 %,
- we wanted to help fast, before austral winter reaches the affected
areas,
- we were sure to get good feedback about the situation within our projects and
thus tought to react better to the needs which arose.
Those are the projects:
Here now our projects, first with a small map so you know where
Concepcion and Dichato are situated:
Project 1: Fast help for Alberto Araneda
Alberto is a profesor at the university of Concepcion (centro EULA) and
has been here quite often in our Region of Aysen researching for
science.
To the time of the Earthquake he was here in the South taking cores in
some lakes, together with Fernando and Miguel from the same university.
They did fieldwork in the south of our region but travelled back by car
overland as soon as they heard of what happened. This took them two
days to Temuco and another difficult day was needed to reach the area
around Concepcion.
No one of the three had lost any family due to the quake, but in
Albertos house a wall went down. Albertos friends and
colleagues
from Europe helped in a fast and efficient way:
Within a week they
collected 1465 EUR via Sébastiens account and
Sébastien then transferred that money to Olafs German account
To avoid (sometimes upto a week) delays getting the money
from
Europe to Chile, Olaf used his Chilean account to give the exchanged
1.050.000 (= 1470 EUR) Chilean Pesos to Alberto the same day.
Alberto has erected his wall again with the help of a local craftsman
and will send us pics of the projects which we want to publish here in
on these pages.
MANY THANKS to the group
around
Sébastien Bertrand from Belgium and all those who
participated in the FAST SUPPORT for ALBERTO of 1465 EUR!
That project worked really well so Olaf asked Alberto if he can scout
out any persons / groups of persons /families who REALLY need help fast
and cant get the help otherwise. Or said frankly: people who have lost
all and are in dire need for help from anyone. This led to a second
project:
Project 2: Helping the families Arias-Avila in Dichato.
Dichato has about 4000 inhabitants and is situated 40km to
the
northeast of Concepcion. Dichato belongs to the commune
of Tomé. Before the quake
Dichato was a
wellknown bathing and vacation place. It counted with a fine beach,
2400m long in a well protected bay.
But the people here lived mainly from fishing and shellfish
farming.
It was aproximated that about 80% of Dichato have been destroyed by the
Earthquake and the following tsunami (waves of upto 10m height).
The sea with its devastating powers destroyed everything what was in
its way and reached 400m inland. There were some fatal victims and many
people were hurt when fleeing the tsunami. Most of the inhabitants were
able to save themselves to the hills close to Dichato, where they live
now in provisional camps. They lost all, houses, cars, boats, personal
goods.
We pinpointed our help to a group of two families, who were
scouted by Alberto. Those 8 affected people lived in a tent camp on the
hills of Dichato.:
Family Luis Avila und
Mariela Letelier:
Luis was a fisher until the tsunami stroke and took all he and his
family had. The couple has one son (Claudio), six years.
Family Pedro Arias und
Eliana Avila:
Pedro until recently was a forestry worker but now works as a
carpenter. The couple has two kids: daughter Dayami is six
years
old and son Jovanny is ten years old. Grandmother Gloria Hernandez of
about 66 years belongs to this family.
Both families had not yet received an emergency shelter from the
government. They lived in precarious tents on the hills close to Dichato
and built a kind of roof to hold away the rain (see pictures below).
As written above we have gotten contact to this group of persons via
Alberto, whos sister was a teacher of one of the kids (Dayami). Alberto
as well was (and is) the person who gave us information regarding
the situation
, he is the direct link there and he personally helped to set
everything up the right way, spending his own time and resources in the
process. Muchas GRACIAS Alberto, without you this could not have
happened!
Through the network of friends and friends of friends and aquaintances it was acchieved to get two provisional shelters
to the two families, which they erected themselves (with the help of
friends and family). You can read about all the process in more detail
if you click here.
In the end, we have success! They got a roof over their heads and can
survive in a better way. We all want to express our gratefulness to
those who helped. Here is the outcome so far:
Familia Avila-Letelier
Together with a very nice letter they send us some photos , so you can see them beside/in their new provisional home:
Familia Arias-Avila
Alberto took some good photos when he was there last, showing the
family in their newly erected provisional shelter, See for yourself
below:
COST
Cost for the two improved provisional shelters was 2.023.000 CLP, see invoice here.
Transport of the shelters was done via truck and the cost was 100.000 CLP , see receipt here.
This transport cost is provided for by Sébastien Bertrand ,
letting us use part (= 100.000 CLP) of his own personal donation for
Alberto for this cause.
Thank you Sébastien!
This leaves out as of now (16.06.2010, 12:00 LCL)
+ 2.387.043 CLP (DONATIONS upto 16.06.2010! - exact list please see here)
- 2.023.000 CLP ( 2 shelters)
- 100.000 CLP (transport of shelters by truck)
+ 100.000 CLP (Sèbastien)
------------------
+ 364.043 CLP
This money was divided in two equal parts of 182.000 CLP and given to the families (receipts here). This money has been used to buy several necessary "add ons". The
remaining 43 Pesos from above and another 33.200 CLP which we received
in the meantime (upto 3-AUG-2010) will be forwarded in equal parts to
the families at a later point.
Below, some pics of the situation of Dichato after the Earthquake and the Tsunami struck:
This project should (and hopefully will not) finish with this first
initial help for the families. We would like to see how they do and
what happens with them in the future, and support them as good as we
can. Here on this webpage you will find information on this project in
the future.
Who wants to support any of above projects further, PLEASE contact us using the
following email:
or call us via: +56 9 7-762-7187 (Olaf) +56 9 8-9738969 (Jammie). This
way, we can communicate account information to you necessary to donate.
Donations are anonymous.
Paypal Donations are an option also, but please be aware that 3 Percent
plus 30 Cents of EVERY donation done via PAYPAL stay with paypal for
their service. E.g. If you donate 1 €, only 61 Cents will
arrive if you donate from out of Europe. This gets a bit better as
higher the value of the donation is:
if you decide to donate 100€, 97.75€ (donated from inside the
EU) or 95.75€ (donated from the rest of the World) will get to the
cause(s) you specify.
To make things easier,I put
together the following button. If you click the button and donate, all the money that
arrives (minus the paypal fees, sorry) wil get to the cause you specify. Thank you.
TOTAL
for Project cause 1 (Alberto Araneda until 03.08.2010; 12:00 LCL): 1.050.000 CLP
TOTAL
for Project cause 2 (Familias Avila - Arias until 03.08.2010; 12:00 LCL): 2.420.243 CLP
