S’pore-based aid groups resume overseas mission trips after borders reopen

When Mr Muchsin Dahalan, a Singapore Red Cross Society (SRC) volunteer, heard about the severe flooding in Pakistan in June, he knew he had to help.

Unable to go due to conflicting schedules, Mr Dahalan, 50, an outdoor instructor, will be assisting a three SRC response team to prepare to leave for Pakistan on Monday. 

Pakistan is not the first country where SRC is resuming its international missions since 2019. The organisation also deployed missions to Ukraine's neighbouring countries earlier this year. 

Organisations like Mercy Relief and Caritas Humanitarian Aid & Relief Initiatives (Singapore), or Charis, will be doing so as well.

Humanitarian mission trips stopped for two years with the closure of borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Aid groups had to resort to other means to help affected people in disaster-hit areas, such as raising funds solely on a digital platform, instead of accepting cash donations. Administering medical and psychological care were also impossible.

With travel restrictions in many countries lifted this year, volunteers can now travel to provide humanitarian aid.

SRC said it has raised around $1 million so far, as part of its response operations for Pakistan. 

United Nations officials have said the floods have displaced around 7.9 million people, and led to the country possibly facing severe food shortages, as 15 per cent of its rice crops have been affected. 

SRC’s spokesman said its team members, who are all overseas disaster deployment trained, must also know first aid and psychological first aid.

With Mr Dahalan’s assistance, the team members were required to undergo technical skills training over four weekends.

Mr Dahalan went on two trips to the Philippines and Vietnam in his first year as a volunteer. In 2016, he helped victims of Typhoon Haima in the Philippines.

He said: “I was quite overwhelmed when I witnessed the devastation and the sense of sadness and loss of the affected people. A woman in her 80s offered to pray for me and the team after she received the shelter kit relief aid.

“I am not able to describe the satisfaction whenever we come to the end of our mission trips and see the affected victims benefiting from what we have done for them.”

Secretary-general of SRC, Mr Benjamin William, said to ensure funds raised are not wasted or misused, SRC works only with trusted partners on the ground.

He said they seldom transfer large sums of money for supplies such as oxygen concentrators and personal protective equipment, and transport these themselves. This allows expenditure to be controlled, as payment is made directly to the supplier, without any third-party involvement.

Mr William said: “With the resumption of international trips and being on the ground in an area that needs help, we can have a better understanding on what Singapore can do to help in the next phase of response.

“It is also crucial to let partners know we are not just disbursing funds for supplies, but that we also have care and concern for the vulnerable communities in disaster areas.”

Mercy Relief resumed humanitarian trips in February. Its chairman Satwant Singh, 58, went on a three-day trip in mid-October to Pakistan’s Sindh province to distribute food rations and tarpaulin sheets for temporary shelters to some 700 households.

He said the situation there is dire, with houses still submerged underwater and water-borne diseases like malaria and dengue rampant.

Said Mr Singh: “The temperature there was about 37 to 40 deg C. Many of them are just sitting there, waiting for the day to pass.”

He added that future relief efforts are being planned to secure medicine and warm clothing for the coming winter season. Mercy Relief is hoping to raise about $500,000 for its response operations in Pakistan. 

Mr Singh added: “It is important for any organisation that does relief or social work to go to the ground and see for themselves where the money goes to. Helping is one thing but accountability is another.”

Mercy Relief had also sent teams to the Philippines and Bangladesh for disaster relief operations and visited Indonesia, Vietnam and Nepal for its long-term development projects since borders reopened in early 2022.

But not all aid groups are ready to travel overseas on a large scale yet.

Some are cautiously resuming their humanitarian trips this year with smaller recce teams to evaluate how the needs of the poor and vulnerable in lesser-developed countries have changed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Relief Singapore’s director Jonathan How will be flying solo on his first trip back to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh after the pandemic, later this year. Since 2018, Mr How has made 11 trips to the Kutupalong refugee camp, which houses nearly a million Rohingya refugees.

Said Mr How: “They’re living in squalid conditions and it’s very cramped. Whether Covid or not, they’re still living that way, and their mental health has worsened during the pandemic.”

He said since 2019, the refugees have faced more movement restrictions, with education and psychosocial support programmes stopped as only essential services were allowed to operate in the refugee camps. The mission this time is to restart a sports programme for about 300 adolescent girls in the camps.

Charis oversees the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore’s overseas humanitarian aid and disaster relief efforts.

It said half of its 19 member organisations are resuming its overseas mission trips this year and destinations include Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam. Its volunteers extend help in areas of education and healthcare. 

Its executive director Linus Ng said the trips are being done on a smaller scale compared with the hundreds of volunteers in pre-pandemic times. 

He said: “They need to regroup on-the-ground resources like transport in the country, and the ground transport company or logistics providers may no longer be operational after Covid.”

Mr Christopher Chan, 57, a mission trip leader for A Call To Share Singapore, one of the member organisations under Charis, will be going on a recce trip in December. The commercial director at an acoustics firm has been going on annual mission trips to Cambodia since 2011 with his wife Trixie Yap, 53, and two children, Matthew, 24, and Erica, 22.

Mr Chan said before the pandemic, the Cambodian mission trips could attract up to 400 participants visiting five cities, including its capital Phnom Penh. Donations for beneficiaries, which included books, shoes and toys, could weigh up to 1.5 tonnes.

But all that stopped when the pandemic hit with the poor and vulnerable badly affected, said Mr Chan. He said: “Their needs intensified because people lost their jobs. Industries like tourism stopped. The big garment factories, tuk-tuk drivers who get daily wages, all couldn’t work any more.”

To help, Mr Chan’s mission team sent $5,000 to the Cambodian school they work with to buy essentials like rice for poor families. The team also conducted English, Mandarin and moral education classes over Zoom to stay connected with their beneficiaries.

He said: “The first year we tried this it was not so successful because there were technology glitches. But many Cambodians said the most meaningful thing was being able to see us in Singapore and realise they are not forgotten.”

How to help

Mercy Relief

Credit Card donation via Mercy Relief’s website: https://www.mercyrelief.org/donate/

Or fund transfer to Mercy Relief’s DBS Current Account 054-900741-2. Donors to indicate “Pakistan Flood Relief 2022” in the comments field.

Singapore Red Cross

Visit https://www.redcross.sg/

Rahmatan Lil Alamin Foundation

To help donate to RLAF or other projects by the organisation, visit https://rlafoundation.org.sg/donations/

Habitat for Humanity

Donations can be made through https://www.habitat.org.sg/donate

Relief Singapore

Looking for volunteers to teach badminton and English. Please e-mail inquiries to jon@relief.sg

Caritas Humanitarian Aid & Relief Initiatives (Singapore)

For more information on volunteering opportunities, visit https://www.charis-singapore.org/