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Flood waters may be receding but things haven’t been getting any easier for the Belize Red Cross. In fact ask any volunteer and they will tell you this is the time when they are most hard at work travelling into the flooded communities and assisting families in need.

According to Belize Red Cross Director General Lily Bowman, they have been helping a total of five hundred and fifty families. Three hundred in the Cayo District, one hundred through the Belize River Valley and one hundred to one hundred and fifty in the Orange Walk District. The relief effort has been challenging as it has not been easy getting the specific supplies needed. Today the Belize Red Cross appealed to the wider community for help.

Lily Bowman, Director General - Belize Red Cross
“We have been working vigorously in the Cayo District with Bullet Tree, Arenal, Calla Creek. We have done assessments of other villages from around the area but these are the main areas that we have decided to work with according to our assessments. We have also been doing a lot of work in the Belize River Valley, Lemonal, Flowers Bank, Rancho Dolores. I do not know all of the villages in that area just off hand. We have also done some assessments in Crooked Tree. “

Jacqueline Godwin,
I know supplies have been coming in to the Belize Red Cross but there is still room for more. What items are needed at this time?

Lily Bowman,
“We are still distributing food of course a lot of people’s livelihoods have been destroyed and they won’t be back on their feet or in no position to be able to earn some income for until two months probably, so we are distributing food packages for a family of five to seven people for two weeks and hopefully we will do another round of that after this first one we did over the weekend. We have also been distributing cleaning material, mops, brooms, buckets, soap powder, Clorox, scrub brush, gloves, and disinfectant. This has come through a donation from USAID as well as they have distributed towards the food packages. We have been asked to please ask for pampers and baby formula. We got a generous donation of Klim from James Brodies so that has been really helping out in the meantime until we get some more. We have been asked to appeal for footwear, rubber boots. The children will soon be going back to school soon. We do not want to have them trampling in the mud so rubber boots will be a good thing.”

The Belize Red Cross has been liaising with the National Emergency Organization Management in the Cayo District to ensure that all families affected by the flood will be helped. The Belize Red Cross also has plans to assist flood victims in the Orange Walk District especially in Douglas Village where all its residents had to be evacuated. The Red Cross has been trying to locate the one hundred and forty five families to give them assistance but because most of them are staying with family and friends, the search has been difficult.