Today was an exciting day for the 32 Outer Island seniors who determined to finish their final year of high school, despite having been displaced by the violence of Typhoon Maysak. Every one of the seniors completed their classes today, and are ready to graduate!

After the storm destroyed their local high schools, these students were transferred to Yap, where they finished out the school year at the Yap High School campus. Fortunately, the dedicated Peace Corps teachers - Caroline, Tianna, Patrick and John - were able to continue teaching the students who they were formally serving on the Outer Islands. A big thanks to these hardworking teachers who have put so much into the students!

Habele volunteers on Yap were particularly excited to deliver brand new "Moving Past Maysak" shirts to the seniors on their big day. The students were thrilled!


Many thanks to the kind donations of so many Habele donors and volunteers who made this special moment possible. Students were also provided "kits" which included materials for their last weeks of school, as well as personal items such as sandals and toiletries.

On a sobering note, the school year is about to begin again, and students on Ulithi are still without a school. The needs for rebuilding this crucial institution are significant, and your support can help make it possible. Please consider sharing this need with friends and family.

To donate directly to Habele's ongoing work in Moving Past Maysak:

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In addition to delivering plants to the island communities, Waa'gey volunteers will be lending their backs and chainsaws to clearing away the wreckage and debris. Many of these remote islands are confined to the use of the only limited hand tools, as chainsaws simply aren't available. Without the chainsaws and additional manpower, the task of clearing space to plant traditional food plots would be extremely daunting.

To donate directly to Habele's ongoing work in Moving Past Maysak:

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Lagoon in Ulithi Atoll.

Habele donors and volunteers often ask questions about the daily lives of the people who live thousands of miles away in beautiful Micronesia. Go here to read, "Where is Micronesia?"

The Outer Islands of Yap provide a fascinating look into traditional island culture and lifestyle. Even today, many remote islands and atolls live in much the same way as they have for millenia.

Villages

Outer Islanders live in small villages facing the calm waters of the atoll’s lagoon. The lagoon provides a shallow, safe location for washing, swimming, gathering fish and shellfish, and launching canoes. This is an extremely valuable feature, considering that these tiny strips of land are surrounded by millions of square miles of some of the deepest water on Earth!
Off the beach, extended families live in houses that were traditionally constructed of hand-carved timbers and leaf thatching. Depending on its size, a family may occupy a small cluster of houses,  and have a separate shed-like structure for cooking meals and mingling. Islanders sleep in hammocks, or on raised wooden platforms in the house. In recent years, access to concrete and sheet metal has meant many houses are a melding of traditional design, and whatever modern materials are available.

Traditional home on Ulithi

While family units may gather for meals, not everyone sleeps under the same roof. Men and boys regularly spend their evenings in the mens’ house, one of the most traditionally important buildings in a village. This unique structure provides a traditional location for men in the village to eat, sleep, store canoes, and meet to discuss community affairs. Building projects, fishing trips, and project planning - like typhoon recovery - would be laid out by community leaders in the mens’ house. Mens’ houses remain strictly segregated. Women have a building of their own that is similarly off-limits to men.

Women on the tiny island of Asor (Ulithi) prepare food in the family cook house

An Outer Islands village like the ones on Ulithi Atoll may include an small elementary school building, a feast hall or meeting house, a church, and a number of sheds for the storage of food and fuel.

Food

Outside the main village are areas designated for growing food. Most of these  growing plots are located near the center of the island, and used for the cultivation of taro plants. Taro grows in swampy, low-lying areas, and produces a starchy stem and edible leaf that are a staple food source for island communities. Other regularly produced crops are coconuts, breadfruit, and bananas. The thin, nutrient-poor soil makes the regular production of many species of plant almost impossible. Outer Islands like those in Ulithi Atoll lost their taro patches and fruit bearing trees in Typhoon Maysak. Some families may have pigs and chickens that wander the island, although not in large numbers.

Women and children provide the care and labor for taro patches, leaving men in the village to focus on the crucial task of gathering food from the sea. Using hand carved outrigger canoes, Outer Island men paddle through the lagoon to check fish traps, cast nets, and dive to pursue small fish with spears. Larger fish cruise the depths outside of the lagoon, and often the men will paddle beyond the relative safety of the lagoon to bring home large catches for sharing in the village.  Outer Islanders have traditionally been willing to make long, open-ocean voyages in canoes to trade resources with other islands.

More "Islands 101" posts coming soon. If you have friends and family curious about Micronesia, please share with them!

To donate directly to Habele's ongoing work in Moving Past Maysak:

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Outer Islanders are famous for using outrigger canoes to travel fantastic distances across the open ocean.

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To donate directly to Habele's ongoing work in Moving Past Maysak:

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.

Early in April, a massive super typhoon ravaged Micronesia, a chain of remote islands strewn across the Western Pacific.

Home to a primarily subsistence economy, Micronesia's most remote "Outer Islands" lay directly in Super Typhoon Maysak's violent path. 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 sending micro Action Grants directly to local partners who've demonstrated exceptionally innovative or sustainable responses.

The first of these was a $1,000 check awarded to Pacific Missionary Aviation (PMA). Decades of service and experience translates into an immediate response, daily delivering subsistence materials to islands with runways, notably Ulithi and Fais. Regular updates are posted on their PMA Facebook page.

A second action grant is headed to Waa'gey, a local cultural organization operating throughout Yap State. A long time Habele partner, their Typhoon Response efforts are most focused on remote islands and atolls such as Fechaulap, which lack airstrips. They've further committed to provide support for transient students displaced by the destruction of Outer Island High School (OIHS) on Falalop, Ulithi.


Habele is also distributing "Moving Past Maysak" t-shirts for local organizations to sell as fundraising items. The shirts will be provided free of charge so all net receipts can be reinvested in Typhoon response. Shirts will also be provided to volunteers and relief workers.

The "Moving Past Maysak" logo is free to use and can be downloaded in JPG, PNG, EPS and AI formats.
To donate to Habele:

or send check or money order to 
Habele, 701 Gervais St, STE 150-244, Columbia, SC 29201.

Habele is a tax exempt, all-volunteer, US based nonprofit with a proud history of high impact support for our partners in Micronesia.

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Early in April, a massive typhoon ravaged Micronesia, a chain of remote islands strewn across the Western Pacific.

Home to a primarily subsistence economy, several of Micronesia's most remote "Outer Islands" lay directly in Super Typhoon Maysak's violent path. The islands have deep historic and strategic ties to the US.

Particularly hard hit were the Atolls of Ulithi (Mogmog, Falalop, Asor and Federai Islands), Fechaulap, and the Island of Fais.

You can help the recovery from this devastating storm. Habele is proud to recommend (this growing list):

SUPPLY CHAIN


Pacific Missionary Airlines (PMA): Decades of service and experience translates into an immediate response, daily delivering subsistence materials to islands with runways, notably Ulithi and Fais. Updates on the PMA Facebook page. Give to PMA here.



INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVES

Brad Holland is a free lance photographer whose startling pictures have brought world wide attention to the devastation. Among his ongoing efforts to tackle the crisis is a  Fundly Donation Drive that allows for purchase of supplies on Yap Proper that are sent directly to Ulithi through PMA. Updates on Brad's Facebook page. Give to Brad here.

Peter Crispell is headed south from Guam to Ulithi with supplies. Peter is raising funds through IndieGoGo to bring basic building materials with him. Donate to Peter here.

REGIONAL NGOs and ISLAND COMMUNITIES

FUNSO  (Fais Ulithi Ngulu Sorol Organization) was created to do exactly what is accomplishing now: coordinating immediate delivery of subsistence supplies to weather torn communities on its namesake islands. Connect with FUNSO through its Facebook Page.

Waa'gey is cultural organization using mentorships to sustain and expand traditional skills. Its defacto role as social organizer of Outer Islanders living on Yap Proper places it at the center of exchanges and logistics between islands. Wag'gey is particularly focused on remote islands (those lacking runways) and donations that fit within cultural practices. Donate to Waa'gey here.

Individual Micronesians -and their friends- living on Guam, in the Northern Marianas, on Hawaii and elsewhere have been fundraising and organizing donations.

Rotary Clubs throughout the region, including those on Pohnpei, Guam and in Palau and the Philippines are are compiling and sending donations of relief materials. Find your nearest club or contact one already organizing donations here.

SCHOOLS

Xavier High School, whose reputation as the preeminent secondary school in Pacific is undisputed, is soliciting donations through New York Province of the Society of Jesus. Funds will go both to the school and the surrounding communities in Chuuk. Donate here.

Outer Island High School (OIHS) on Falalop, Ulithi serves students from islands throughout Yap State. It was decimated by Maysak. Cal Tiweyang has a GoFundMe donation drive accepting contributions here.

BIG NGOS and GOVERNMENTS

The State Governments of Yap and Chuuk are organizing relief. The national government of the Federated States of Micronesia as well. International nongovernmental organizations such as the Red Cross (IFRC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are similarly responding; so are US taxpayers through US AID.


... and of course HABELE!

Habele is an all volunteer, US-based, nonprofit established by former Peace Corps. Habele is working with it's local partners, including Waa'gey, creating Response Kits and Recovery Kits.

As Governments and large NGOs are taking big steps in providing water and food, temporary shelters, Habele is looking to the specific needs of communities in the mid- to long-term. This includes niche tools for demolition and reconstruction; logistical support and school materials for Outer Islanders migrating to Yap Proper for completion of the school year; as well as coordination and funding for women groups organizing donations of live planting food crops and trees.

To donate to Habele:

or send check or money order to 
Habele, 701 Gervais St, STE 150-244, Columbia, SC 29201.

Habele is a tax exempt, all-volunteer, US based nonprofit with a proud history of high impact support for our partners in Micronesia.

Habele donors and volunteers are answering the call of those who've endured Super Typhoon Maysak! The record breaking storm devastated low lying islands and atolls of Yap State, Micronesia. You can help.

As contributions come in -through Paypal or to 701 Gervais St, Set 150-244, Columbia SC 29201- volunteers are assembling boxes of donations for immediate shipment to Habele's partners on the ground.

These include Response Kits, with basic medicines, simple first aid, children's vitamins, and mosquito repellent, as well as Recovery Kits, which help start the process of clearing and rebuilding.

Each Recovery Kit includes:

• Industrial metal shears, two pair
• Electrogalvanized roofing nails
• Metal tape and weatherproof sealants
• Tape measure, post level and sliding T-bevel
• Wide wood chisel, 550 paracord and a small battery powered light

Habele is a US-based charity, established in 2006 by former Peace Corps Volunteers and teachers who've lived and worked throughout Micronesia. The contents of these kits are based on the specific requests made by community members and partner organizations in Yap State.


Our focus remains those hardest hit; communities on Ulithi, Fais and Fechaulap.

Please donate now:

or send check or money order to 
Habele, 701 Gervais St, STE 150-244, Columbia, SC 29201.

Habele is a tax exempt, all-volunteer, US based nonprofit with a proud history of high impact support for our partners in Micronesia.

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