Well, kind of. For this financial year anyway. A few weeks to go to, the last push. It’s a significant spell in any year. We all get quite competitive over time and we want to see the shops we work in do as well as possible, both in themselves and also against similar shops in the chain. I won’t risk incurring a jinx by stating here what we in the bookshop are hoping for. I’ll wait till the year-end results are in.
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Over the month we will be featuring some of our antiquarian and ex-eBay stock in a prominent, expanded space in the shop. Our vintage kids books sale, now in its last few days, will make way. There should be some very nice offerings in this offer of rarer stock, so local readers, please swing by.
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Oxfam now have enough money to fund our response to the earthquake, both for the emergency phase and the recovery phase. Shops alone raised over £1m for our own appeal and the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal. Everyone who donated can feel very good indeed to have contributed to such a fantastic response. Here are some updates on the situation:
Challenges:
– Hundreds of thousands of people are still living in camps, which are crowded and dirty, with poor waste disposal and sanitation (though we can be proud that over 20% of all latrines built since the earthquake were built by Oxfam).
– The rainy season will start in April and hurricane season begins in June. The rain could not only soak people’s flimsy shelters but also spread sewage, increasing the risk of waterborne disease such as cholera.
Achievements
– We are providing clean water to 82,000 people living in camps. We do this in co-ordination with other charities and eight out of ten of the 850,000 people in need of clean water now have it.
– We are employing engineers to assess the stability of buildings which did not fall down and decide whether it is safe for people to move back in.
– We are reaching 20,000 people with cash-for-work programmes. For example, we are paying 16-21 year olds to make up family kits containing basics for cooking and washing. These have gone to 10,000 households so far. The people packing the kits receive 500 gourdes a day (about $12.25), which is well above the local minimum wage.
– We have opened 5 school canteens
– We are identifying small local businesses such as plumbers, bakers and electrical businesses which we can help to start work again.
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