Crisis Overview
On June 27th 2021, Costa Rica’s President, Carlos Quesada declared a national emergency in response to heavy and persistent rainfall across Costa Rica, particularly in the administration of Turrialba and on the Caribbean coast. The National Emergency Commission reported 1,796 floods and landslides with over 7,500 people either living in temporary shelters or with host families. The Municipal Emergency Committees had responded by setting up 57 temporary shelters housing more than 3550 people, however many urgent needs of the affected community were left unaddressed. These needs were: access to appropriate WASH facilities, medical consultations, and psychological interventions. With this, on August 1st, 2021, CADENA and World Vision alerted the Start Fund to meet the needs of the affected population, focusing on those who had not received support from the government.
Response
On August 4th, 2021, CADENA and their partner World Vision were awarded £130,000 to respond in the provinces of Limon and Cartago. Their response focused on distributing hygiene, biosecurity, and dignity kits, installation of water filters and training their users, as well as psychological and medical consultations. During the response, the CADENA team noticed an increased need for psychosocial support, so they took psychologists to the field and developed a resilience book to help children process what they were experiencing.
CADENA’s and World Visions response directly reached 7,500 individuals affected by these floods.
