Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association relief news update from Colombia.
Since the end of May, pummeling rains brought a series floods with landslides to southern Colombia, causing the loss of at least 18 lives and damage to 15,000 homes.

Relief recipient (F): By the floods we lost everything that we had, all the few things that we had. Conveying her sympathies and sorrowful prayers, Supreme Master Ching Hai initially donated US$10,000, asking our nearby Association members to please go to help the worst affected regions.

Our Association’s relief team from Colombia and Costa Rica first assisted 1,050 families in the hard-hit Caquetá Department, which had been isolated from the aid of charity groups or other agencies due to conflict in the region.

The relief team was able to bring basic food supplies and comfort to the families. Upon seeing the hardships faced by so many people, Supreme Master Ching Hai donated an additional US$10,000, with the total US$20,000 able to acquire US$100,000 in emergency items if purchased in the United States, based on
Colombia’s cost of living.

Having also reimbursed the relief team’s travel expenses for both trips, totaling over US$2,000, Supreme Master Ching Hai requested that they please go to see if there were any more urgent family needs, as she stated, “Indeed their suffering is so vast, my heart aches for them.”

Returning to the Caquetá region, our Association’s relief team found that families were still enduring hunger there.

Correspondent (F): We are in Florence, Caquetá, where the disaster relief team of the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association is providing support to the families who are still being affected by the floods that they suffered in the last two months in the Department of Caquetá. At this moment, they are delivering aid such as food for the families.

VOICE: Our Association’s relief team distributed food packages containing rice, beans, oil, wheat flour, cornmeal, and sugar cane to 675 hungry families in two Caquetá municipalities. They visited again with a family who had lost one child to a landslide, with three other children who survived hours of being trapped among heavy stones. As they had no permanent home, employment, or aid, they were happy to see the relief team again.

Child who survived landslide (M): Thanks Master for the cookies.

Survivor child (F): For the cookies, for the food, we give you many thanks.

Relief recipient, lost child (F): I want to give thanks to Master, because with this, it’s the second time that she has helped us. And we give thanks because in this time, we are without employment and this is of much help.

Correspondent (F): This is Supreme Master Television, reporting from Florencia, Caquetá, Colombia.

VOICE: We join in thanking Supreme Master Ching Hai for her caring support to the flood afflicted in Colombia, with appreciation as well to our Association’s relief team for their dedicated help. Our prayers for the comfort and recovery of the people to their productive daily lives and that such tragedies may be lessened through our greater efforts to protect one another and the planet.