Since the massive twin earthquakes that devastated the north of Venezuela on June 24, faith groups have been at the forefront of the recovery effort. The quakes leveled entire areas of La Guaira, a coastal region in the country’s north, killing and injuring thousands of people and leaving tens of thousands of reported disappearances, reports CBS News. CBS News described a scene of “incalculable human suffering” as rescue workers and residents alike desperately worked to deliver aid and free people trapped in the rubble.
Omar Khalifa, who was deployed to Venezuela as part of the emergency response effort coordinated by the faith-based international humanitarian group Islamic Relief, wrote about an emotional moment as the team was en route to La Guaira. With the road closed for a search and rescue operation, Khalifa said the rescue team asked everyone to turn off their cars and remain silent.
“A road full of cars – and an entire country – waited in hope for a miracle and to hear the faint sound of a knock or a plea for help from a survivor buried under tonnes of rubble,” Khalifa wrote. “None came.”
A wide variety of humanitarian agencies, including many affiliated with religious organizations, have stepped up to provide food, water, supplies, and services to the many displaced. With help from a network of partner mosques and community volunteers, Islamic Relief has provided help to more than 2,200 survivors, Khalifa reported. The group aims to ensure dignity as well as basic supplies, Khalifa wrote, providing hygiene kits containing soap, sanitary pads, toothpaste and brushes as well as food that can be eaten without electricity or refrigeration, like cans of tuna and high-energy biscuits.
“So many lives have changed forever in the blink of an eye,” Khalifa wrote. “We’re committed to help them rebuild and recover.”
Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian relief group, set up an emergency hospital in La Guaira, reports Religion News Service. The group has so far distributed 98 tons of emergency supplies including shelter materials, blankets, hygiene kits and water filtration units, RNS reports. Caritas Venezuela, the Catholic Church’s humanitarian agency in the country, reported that 14,700 tons of humanitarian aid had reached the country, with 9,000 tons already distributed, according to Vatican News. More than 8,000 families received assistance, Caritas said. Caritas Venezuela activated its diocesan and parish network to bring aid to the hardest-hit areas, Vatican News reports, relying on more than 280 volunteers daily and coordinating with the international Caritas network to deploy specialists in areas including water and sanitation, risk management, nutrition and shelter.
Other faith-based humanitarian groups responding include the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services (in partnership with Caritas), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Send Relief.
Many faith leaders within Venezuela have jumped into action to provide food, water and other basic needs despite being themselves displaced or otherwise impacted by the disaster, RNS reports. Presbyterian Pastor Ricardo Corzo Moreno described trying to keep his family calm through the quakes’ aftershocks while still operating a 24-hour prayer and collection center for survivors.
“Not even in my worst nightmares did I imagine a situation as apocalyptic as the current one,” Corzo Moreno told RNS.
Religious institutions are the world’s original social service providers, and have offered community services including health care, education and humanitarian relief long before governments did, said Dr. Azza Karam, the Founding President and CEO of Lead Integrity and a Temple of Understanding Board of Trustees member. People often flock to religious institutions during moments of upheaval, whether it’s a natural disaster, an infectious disease outbreak or a terrorist attack like Sept. 11, Karam said.
“We go there because it’s an instinctive thing – a place of worship will be safe in our mind,” Karam said. “You don’t have to be a believer to think like that – it’s almost like a knee jerk reaction.”
Faith-based humanitarian groups respond to whoever might need help, regardless of their faith, Karam said. In Venezuela, faith-based humanitarian groups are “at their best,” and kicking their relief efforts into full gear, Karam said. But what’s needed now more than ever, Karam said, is for these different religious institutions to work together to bring aid to the community in a more coordinated manner. Faith-based humanitarian efforts typically remain siloed within individual institutions, with little crossover in disaster response efforts, Karam said.
“They’re doing tremendous work, they’re saving lives literally, but they’re doing it alone,” Karam said. “Meanwhile, the community on the ground is working together to save one another, but the religious institutions that are actually there delivering services are not working together.”
Karam could imagine an ideal scenario where religious institutions pooled funds and resources and came together in an umbrella network in order to expand reach and impact.
Beyond providing for basic needs, faith groups are also offering much-needed comfort and hope to survivors. During an emotional homily June 28, the President of Caritas Venezuela and Archbishop of Maracaibo, Monsignor Jose Luis Azuaje, committed to supporting survivors’ emotional as well as physical health. He also praised the community’s solidarity, resilience and unity amid the disaster.
“The earth may tremble, but the promise that love is stronger than fear remains intact,” Azuaje said.