Floods and more floods ...
Sorry its been such a long time ....though I haven't been deafened by the clamour of voices asking "where is he?" ...must be the word accountant in the title ...wonder what google makes of that when categorising it?
Problem is, our home was flooded before Christmas - yes great timing - by a burst pipe upstairs....and we had to move out due to the damage. Its made a right mess of the place, and there's been stress and hassle -but we're all OK, we will get everything replaced despite the best efforts of the loss adjusters to slow the drying process down by cutting costs...and so on.
My mind started working overtime as soon as I saw the mess the house was in.....and my Pastor and his wife who have just moved to this country from many years in Thailand were busy trying to dry the carpets etc -a complete but lovely waste of time. Of course the first thing I did - after checking the photos were dry - was phone the insurance company; not in their minds having been in Thailand.
Just what must it be like if you have no insurance? And if there are hundreds of houses suffering the same, and not enough builders to go round? That's the reality of life for many people.
I'm off to The Philippines shortly with Christian Aid. (Yes lets forget anonymity!)It's a staff exposure trip - I'm leading a group of 5 of us who get to see the work of our partners first hand, get an in depth knowledge of the before, during and after of the work, and come back with stories to inspire hopefully. They have had typhoon after typhoon over there last year, with thousands displaced. Puts my problems into perspective ...and also makes me wonder what I'm going to see.
Beats going to hotels in Jersey or St Andrews for partner conferences in my last job!!
I'll be blogging from the Philipppines so don't expect anything on this one - have a look at http://nightingalesangatwcc.typepad.com/philippines/ and bookmark it!
Problem is, our home was flooded before Christmas - yes great timing - by a burst pipe upstairs....and we had to move out due to the damage. Its made a right mess of the place, and there's been stress and hassle -but we're all OK, we will get everything replaced despite the best efforts of the loss adjusters to slow the drying process down by cutting costs...and so on.
My mind started working overtime as soon as I saw the mess the house was in.....and my Pastor and his wife who have just moved to this country from many years in Thailand were busy trying to dry the carpets etc -a complete but lovely waste of time. Of course the first thing I did - after checking the photos were dry - was phone the insurance company; not in their minds having been in Thailand.
Just what must it be like if you have no insurance? And if there are hundreds of houses suffering the same, and not enough builders to go round? That's the reality of life for many people.
I'm off to The Philippines shortly with Christian Aid. (Yes lets forget anonymity!)It's a staff exposure trip - I'm leading a group of 5 of us who get to see the work of our partners first hand, get an in depth knowledge of the before, during and after of the work, and come back with stories to inspire hopefully. They have had typhoon after typhoon over there last year, with thousands displaced. Puts my problems into perspective ...and also makes me wonder what I'm going to see.
Beats going to hotels in Jersey or St Andrews for partner conferences in my last job!!
I'll be blogging from the Philipppines so don't expect anything on this one - have a look at http://nightingalesangatwcc.typepad.com/philippines/ and bookmark it!
posted by Mark at 9:12 PM
1 Comments:
Relevant to any country with low lying coastline and land is the proposal for an Environmental Tax on Imports (ETI) which would help fund sea barriers. There is much more to it than that: see www.STEERglobal.org
This proposal has gone a very long way and is worth investigating more - but Christian Aid's Jonathon Glennie went off to South America at the Crucial Time (after he had been looking into it but before taking up the baton in support).
I call on all NGOs especially those with expertise in finance to UNITE behind this practical, transparent and easy to implement step. (Which also, incidentally would reduce the fund-raising burden for NGOs). And look out for my next invention to attain some global justice, sustainability and peace.
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