Targeting 100,000 affected people

Its 4a.m. in the morning. I got up an hour ago and packed for my trip from Jakarta to Padang. The flight leaves at 6 a.m. I just checked the boys who are sleeping soundly. They haven't seen much of their Dad since the quake struck just over a week ago. Last night my eldest boy Ablai said, "Dad, I don't want you to go." I have heard that many times but it never lessens the pangs of departure.

I have been in Jakarta the last few days working on an appeal to increase our support from the current 5,000 families to 20,000 families which is over 100,00 affected people. Last night we finalised the appeal and posted it on the web. It is almost 19 million US dollars. We have about US$ 7 million to date so I hope the remained will come in quickly from our very loyal member national societies.

This revised emergency appeal is in response to a request from the Indonesia Red Cross (Palang Merah Indonesia/PMI) to enable the national society to provide more relief and early recovery support to those most affected by the earthquakes. Since the preliminary appeal went out, casualty and damage figures have risen considerably, revealing increased needs which PMI is seeking to meet. The appeal seeks support to scale up and provide assistance to 20,000 families (100,000 individuals) through the continuation of relief distribution of non-food items, shelter, psycho-social support, water and sanitation intervention, health and medical provisions and logistics support.

If times permits I will post an update tonight. Gotta run to the airport. Bob