'Yolanda' survivors' tales to help build libraries

TACLOBAN CITY, Oct. 11 (PNA) –- Librarians in Eastern Visayas have been collecting untold stories of super typhoon Yolanda survivors to come up with a book.

The 100-member Philippine Librarians Association Incorporated and the Eastern Visayas Regional Librarians Council (EVRLC) plan to build public libraries in the region from the net proceeds of sales of books with compilation Yolanda survivors’ stories.

Aside from the construction of libraries, they will also archive stories not just in print, but in web-based form for easy access.

“This is good because people not just in our country will know of our experiences during super typhoon Yolanda. We can also inspire them, that despite of the disaster in our lives, we still manage to move on,” said Roxane Cobilla, a typhoon survivor from Anibong district, this city.

Roxane, despite of the ordeal brought by the monster typhoon, managed to gave birth to a healthy baby, two weeks after the catastrophe.

Ma. Chona Rama, who initiated the compilation of survivors’ tale three months after the typhoon on Nov. 8, 2013, said the first library to be constructed in the region will be at the Kapuso Village in San Jose, Palo town.

Another outlet will rise in Palo town center as a provincial library.

“These stories would serve as a part of our history and this project would remind the next generation and the rest of the world of the regions’ experience during the onslaught of super typhoon Yolanda,” Chona told PNA.

The group expects to launch the book late next year, containing at least a hundred tales of selected survivors.

Supertyphoon Yolanda with international name Haiyan, recorded to be strongest at its landfall, killed at least 6,300 lives, leaving 1,061 missing and damage to property of PHP89 billion, ravaging a big part of Visayas region, based on government’s official report. (PNA)
JMC/SQM/DANICA-ANN M. ULTADO, LNU INTERN/EGR