Sarah Talbot spent the past two days trying to get visas from a foreign embassy, not so she could embark on the typical youthful trek through Europe this summer, but for others trying to save lives in Southeast Asia.
“I couldn’t get any answer on the phone, so I walked over to the embassy to get information, and I walked over again today,” said Ms. Talbot, a 31-year-old Columbia Heights resident and the emergency-program coordinator for the D.C. headquarters of Save the Children (STC), an independent, global humanitarian-aid organization.
To no avail. To her surprise yesterday, there were no long lines nor was anybody available at the Embassy of the Union of Myanmar, in Northwest, to help Ms. Talbot get visas for STC relief workers trying to gain entry to Burma, also called Myanmar.
An estimated 22,000 are known dead in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, which hit Burma last weekend. Another 41,000 are unaccounted for, and government and relief workers are reporting that the death toll could reach 100,000.
It’s unconscionable that the emergency-relief efforts by the United Nations and such groups as STC, the Red Cross and CARE are being thwarted by Burma’s government officials leery of Westerners.
The D.C. office of STC has 20 senior staffers among the hundreds waiting in Bangkok ready to go into Burma to assist 500 STC workers already assigned to long-range projects in that country, STC spokesman Michael Kiernan said.
Trained in disaster relief, the workers have stopped their primary jobs developing schools and infrastructure, and shifted to distributing two metric tons of food and pre-prepared emergency kits, which include plastic sheeting, household and hygiene items, water and shelter repair materials to 50,000 children and families.
Mr. Kiernan said relief organizations are now concerned about “the second wave of fatalities” from such diseases as cholera, brought on by people drinking water infected by dead people and animals.
“People, who are well-off [today], can get sick and die,” he said. “Americans are asking how bad is this? And the answer is really bad.”
Gaining entry into the disaster area in only a small part of the coordinating duties.
Ms. Talbot said she’s also trying to update people on relief efforts and “pull together proposals” for donors, who frequently ask “on what we are spending money?”
Mr. Kiernan said answering such a question is difficult when events are unfolding so quick.
“You have to assess the greatest needs on the ground.” he said. “Sarah represents these smart, young women in her age group who are drawn to this emergency-response work, and there are a lot of them. She is the linchpin of our [D.C.] organization.”
Ms. Talbot, a Richmond native, earned a degree in environmental science from the University of Virginia in 1999, then joined the Peace Corps.
She spent two years in Cameroon in an agro-forestry program working with farmers, whom she said “taught me a lot.”
The daughter of a single, hardworking mother, Ms. Talbot said she and her siblings did not have a lot “but we had everything we needed,” and that her upbringing helped her to discern and value “what is important to me.”
Upon returning to the United States, Ms. Talbot taught in a French immersion school in Portland, Ore. She joined Save the Children about two years ago as an intern working on HIV/AIDS-related issues.
“When I first came back from Cameroon, I was a little too judgmental,” Ms. Talbot acknowledges. She now sees Americans as more willing to assist those less fortunate.
Mr. Kiernan said the best way to help in this disaster relief is by giving money to reputable organizations, including churches.
“Don’t clean out your medicine cabinet, don’t clean out the old clothes in your closet, send a check,” he said.
It costs relief organizations more money to sort out donated goods and ship them than it does to purchase items near the affected areas. The overseas purchases also help rebuild the affected economy.
Holding bake sales or yard sales to raise money for relief donations is another way to help.
The Burma cyclone is not the first major disaster that Ms. Talbot has weathered.
“The most memorable was when the earthquake hit Bangladesh last year,” she said of the long days and nights.
“You get stressed out, then you think about what [they victims] are going through and it doesn’t compare,” Ms. Talbot said.
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