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mgm国际平台注册 On Nov. 8, 2023, our country commemorated the ai预测足球免费软件 10th year after “Yolanda” (Internationally known as “Haiyan”), the world s second strongest typhoon, struck the Visayas, killing over 6,000 people. Several articles have been written about the effects of this super typhoon on communities and families, including lessons learned for policies and programs on climate change and disaster management. My column focuses on one individual — Kay Katherine Zabala, an internationally recognized life coach who suffered from the loss of many loved ones during the super typhoon. She went through several years of therapy from health professionals and other service providers before becoming the lead life coach in Eastern Visayas. A life coach is a trained service provider who collaborates with clients by assisting them in attaining their goals, overcoming challenges, and changing the direction of their lives.

I have known Kay since 2005 because she was a scholar of the Ford Foundation-supported transdisciplinary health social science graduate program of De La Salle University, where I taught for many years. She has kept in touch with me since she obtained her master s degree in 2006. In those years after Yolanda, she would often tell me online that she was OK. I refrained from asking about her family s harrowing experience from the super typhoon because I was worried that it would bring back unhappy memories. Last month, to my surprise, she narrated what she went through in the past decade, and she agreed to share her story as a way of honoring her late mother, siblings and other relatives. When Yolanda struck the Visayas on Nov. 8, 2013, Kay was very busy writing a report for her employer in Metro Manila, a contractor of an international development agency. The company consultants and her officemates kept asking her about her family in Palo, Leyte, and whether her house was strong enough to withstand the super typhoon. She assured them that her family and relatives were used to strong storms because these natural disasters were a part of island life. Before the onset of any typhoon, her relatives would always tie their concrete houses roofs with strong rope to ensure that these would not be blown away by strong winds. Except for Kay and an older brother who worked in Abu Dhabi, the other six siblings (four sisters, including Kay s identical twin, and two brothers), widowed mother, nephews, nieces, aunts, and uncles lived in eight houses on an inherited 1.6-hectare compound with many fruit and coconut trees and vegetables. Their place was around 300 meters from an estuary, where fresh water from a river and streams mixes with salt water from the ocean. In previous years, Kay s relatives had never experienced floods during strong typhoons, so she was confident that they would be safe when Yolanda would hit Leyte.

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