Two years after she lost her husband, six kids, mother and best friend to supertyphoon Yolanda, Juvelyn Luana is slowly picking up the pieces.
She now lives with her partner and five-month-old baby boy in a shack far from the shore. Luana tells the Agence France-Presse, “having a husband and a baby gave my life direction.”
Even though the shack they now call home is near a landfill so the stench is often overpowering, Juvelyn is grateful to be part of the 929 families that have been given homes by the government.
They are struggling but grateful
Finding hope in the ruins and poverty, she and her partner Joel Aradana consider themselves lucky.
Aradana also lost his spouse to the disaster. He provides for their family by doing occasional carpentry work that gives him P350/day.
But this amount barely covers their daily expenses, since he has to make an 11-commute daily commute to the city where he works.
Though receiving the aid they need has been a slow process, they remain hopeful.
As of this writing, she is still awaiting a government loan for a rice business which has yet to be approved.
More than a million people were affected by the deadliest typhoon in the history of the Philippines but stories like Juvelyn’s give hope that picking up the pieces is possible, no matter what tragedy befalls us.
Read: 200 families receive typhoon-resilient homes 2 years after super typhoon Yolanda
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