Sankara Market Launches Meal Box Campaign To Help Philippines Flood Relief
MONCTON – For Kyle Tomagan, Sankara Market’s newest team member, watching his friends, family and home community in the Philippines face the disastrous impact of Typhoon Vamco has been heartbreaking.
“There is massive flooding in the area, literally house level….entire houses were basically drowning,” the digital marketing coordinator said.
The Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries have been pummeled by major storms – at least five since early October. Vamco is the latest.
The category four typhoon, also known by its other name Ulysses, has displaced approximately 350,000 people and killed at least 67 people in Luzon, the island where capital city Manila is located. More are still missing.
Its impact is also felt in neighbouring Vietnam, where more than 200 people have died or gone missing.
Those who managed to find safety, like Tomagan’s family and friends, still have to endure extensive property damages.
“I have a lot of contacts who were really devastated by that calamity,” he said. “One of my friends had to climb onto the roof of their house with his entire family.”
It’s reminiscent of his own experience, said Tomagan, whose family had had to evacuate their home in the past due to a bad storm.
So when Tomagan’s colleagues at Sankara decided to help raise money for relief efforts, he was “really touched.”
“I actually really didn’t expect this to happen because we were in the middle of a holiday campaign,” Tomagan said, adding that he was appreciative of Sankara co-founder Lily Lynch’s proactiveness once she heard about the impact of the typhoon.
The online multicultural market run out of Saint John is now working with partner chef Irene Mangubat to sell meal boxes containing Filipino delicacies like chicken adobo, crispy tofu sisig and pancit bihon, among other menu items.
For each box sold, 10 percent will be donated to the Bangon Luzon relief drive in the Philippines, run by local non-governmental organization Kaya Natin.
The vegetarian and non-vegetarian meal boxes are available for delivery in the Greater Moncton area. The campaign, dubbed “Filipino Food for Good,” will last until the end of December.
Sankara’s co-founder Otito Atansi said the move is connected to the company’s values and its namesake.
The late Thomas Sankara, a former president of Burkina Faso and a revolutionary, believed in self-determination, solidarity and community, Atansi said.
“We embrace the ideology of having solidarity among our community,” he said.
Additionally, Sankara’s mission is to build cross-cultural empathy through the sharing of cultural products and services.
“When we saw [what happened in the Philippines], we moved quickly to see how we can help with that,” said co-founder Otito Atansi. “How can we help Kyle not worry so much about home, and how can we assist him in this moment?”
Atansi, who is Nigerian, understands how support from the community feels as his country is seeing a violent backlash against anti-police brutality protesters.
He says Sankara tries to support various communities affected by global events, especially because their team is multicultural.
Sankara plans to find ways to also help organizations in Honduras, where one of their team members originate, as the country faces the impact of Hurricane Iota and Hurricane Eta.
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Inda Intiar is a reporter for Huddle. Send her story suggestions: [email protected]