Photo: A mother and child try out their new solar light in Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh. Photo by Véronique de Viguerie
The tent is very helpful, we feel safe inside. We are healing, life is slowly getting better.
Erti, Sulawesi, Indonesia
As photojournalist Tom Stoddart made the ShelterBox appeal in May 2018, thousands of Rohingya families continued to arrive in Bangladesh. They had been forced to flee horrific violence in Myanmar, leaving behind their homes, their livelihoods and all their belongings.
Radio 4 listeners generously gave £31,562 to our appeal. Since then, their gifts have been supporting displaced families in Bangladesh, Syria and around the world with the tools to rebuild after disaster.
In Bangladesh, 8,000 refugee families received solar lights. They can now prepare and share meals more easily; children can study into the evening.
Later in 2018, Indonesia was rocked by severe earthquakes in Lombok and Sulawesi. Erti was in the shower when the earthquake hit her Sulawesi home. Her only way out of the house was through the bathroom wall that had collapsed in front of her.
‘We had nothing, only what we were wearing,’ she said. After living in a cramped, makeshift tarpaulin shelter with her neighbours, Erti’s family received a ShelterBox tent to put on the land where their house once stood. ‘The tent is very helpful, we feel safe inside,’ she said. ‘We are healing, life is slowly getting better.’
This is just a snapshot of how Radio 4 listeners are supporting families with the tools to recover. Shelter is so much more than a roof. It’s a home. It’s the foundation for life, for families, and communities
Thank you.
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