EU allocates €150,000 to support victims of recent floods in Guyana

As Guyana continues to grapple with the current flood crisis that has affected all 10 regions, support continues to pour in from the international community with the European Union on Friday announcing that it is allocating some GY$37.3 million (€150,000) in humanitarian funding to assist some 500 persons who have been severely affected by the recent wave of intense floods.
The country has been experiencing higher-than-normal levels of rainfall since May and local authorities estimate that the subsequent extensive flooding has affected over 36,000 households across 300 communities.
With severe weather expected to continue, the main risk is that due to low lying lands and minimal tidal differences, flood waters will recede slowly hence generating stagnant pools that would contribute in increasing the risk of water and mosquito-borne diseases.

Against this backdrop, the EU Delegation in Guyana in a statement on Friday stated that its current humanitarian funding will be channelled towards the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in support of their Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) and will be implemented by the Guyana Red Cross society which is present in all affected districts.
The intervention will last for three months and aims at providing immediate support to 500 vulnerable families currently living in temporary shelters in the most severely affected regions of Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo (Region 9) and Upper Demerara-Berbice (Region 10).
Ambassador of the European Union to Guyana, Fernando Ponz Cantó, in brief comments referred to the meeting between the EU Delegation and the Director General of Guyana’s Civil Defence Commission (CDC), Lieutenant Colonel Kester Craig, on June 11, 2021, to facilitate the activation of the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism.
Following the CDC’s request, the EU’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service was also activated on June 14, to provide satellite maps of the affected flood areas across Guyana.
Ambassador Ponz Cantó highlighted in Friday’s missive that, “this humanitarian grant of €150,000 is already complemented by the intervention of the French Red Cross, which was coordinated by the Embassy of France in Suriname and channelled via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.”
The EU funding will contribute to enable the Guyana Red Cross to swiftly provide families with kitchen sets, solar lamps, durable mosquito nets to prevent the spread of mosquito-borne diseases such as Dengue, Chikungunya or Zika. Families will also receive hygiene kits, jerrycans, household cleaning kits and water treatment tablets to prevent the spread of water-borne diseases which are likely to increase due to the persistence of stagnating water.
With EU funding, the Guyana Red Cross will identify the 200 most vulnerable families and deliver to them, cash and vouchers so that they can purchase what they most urgently need to help them through the difficult period of dislocation.
In order to mitigate the risks connected to a potential spread of the coronavirus, shelters will be equipped with first aid kits and people will receive 5000 N95 masks and 1000 flacons of hand sanitiser.