Women's Weather Watch Update 4

Monday 2 April 2012

"We cater for 55 seniors at the moment and we need to ensure they have the basic food items such as rice,flour,dhal,tea leaves, sugar, milk,salt and oil," Dorothy Bali tells me,

"The seniors also need a supply of medication for diabeties and high blood pressure tablets like daonil, anapril."

She has just returned from Ba Town where aside from one supermarket, she was pleased to find a chemist open.

Dorothy, the Coordinator of the Ba Seniors Centre relies on medication for a chronic hip condition while her assistant Ashika needed to get medicine for her 6 month old baby.

A typical Monday for the Ba Seniors Centre would be preparing for the weekly Wednesday activities for the 55 members including a monthly peace and human security mapping and discussion as a rural partner for FemLINKPacific.

But that will not be the case this week, as Fiji braces for Cyclone Daphne and the rural communities try and pick up the pieces:

"The town area, Elevuka, Yalalevu, Vutuni, Maururu Road, Moto are the places where mostly women and children are stranded as littles bridges they used to get across to access shops, school and the Ba Mission Hospital are all destroyed."

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, Executive Director, FemLINKPacific (www.femlinkpacific.org.fj)

ENDS

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