Habele is working with McREL International to organize a direct bridge of donations from US students to Island students recovering from the storm.

Early in April, a massive super typhoon ravaged Micronesia, a chain of remote islands scattered across the Western Pacific, about 500 miles east of the Phillipines.

Home to a primarily subsistence economy, Micronesia's most remote "Outer Islands" lay directly in the past of this category 5 typhoon with winds up to 155 mph. The islands have deep historic and strategic ties to the US.

Habele has been sending Response Kits and Recovery Kits to families and local community organizations. You can help this all-volunteer effort by donating right now. We've highlighted other reputable groups and individuals serving victims as well.

Habele is also partnering with our friends at McREL International to establish Direct Links between the students and educators impacted by the storm and students and educators in Colorado and Hawaii who want to help.

This coordinated in-kind donation program is based on islander articulated needs for students whose schools have been leveled or catastrophically damaged. A call to action shared with certain public schools in Colorado explains:

Under the guidance of island education organizations, Habele and Waa’gey, [McREL and partners]  are collecting donations to build Student “New Beginning” Kits that we will personally carry to Guam. From there, our island colleagues will fly the kits to the outer islands and distribute to students...  

The kits, assembled by US students and educators, will include:

• Notebooks, pencils, pens
• Colored pencils, crayons
• Bars of antibacterial body soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste
• English dictionaries
• Calculators (solar-powered preferred)
• Culturally-appropriate nonfiction books (science, geography, local history or ecology of land/ocean, art)
• Sunglasses (to protect eyes since no shelter)
• Sandals (to protect feet from shredded metal roofing)
• Bug repellent
• 1-gallon bags (to hold one set of supplies / student)

McREL International is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan education research and development corporation. Its Pacific Center for Changing the Odds supports educators throughout Oceania, including schools across Micronesia. McREL works with teachers to enhance effective, culturally appropriate teaching strategies. Many are friends and colleagues with those impacted by Maysak.

Please take a moment to help. If you can assemble a kit or contributed any of the listed items, please contact their Denver office. If you'd like to help Waa'gey, who will coordinate distribution within Yap State, then do so here.