Volunteering in the aftermath of the massive earthquake

My decision to volunteer upon arriving in Chile was an easy one to make. Several million people were affected by the 8.8 magnitude earthquake which shook the whole country the weekend before I arrived in Santiago. I flew out to Chile, from New Zealand, 4 days after the quake and arrived to find a city in shock. Santiago is some 300km from the epicentre of the quake which was close to the second city of Chile, Concepcion.The city of Concepcion was devastated, intially by the quake, and then by the huge tsunami which struck a few hours later. Combined, these natural disasters have left many communities without food, water, shelter, electricity ... the list is endless. Once in Santiago I got in touch with the Red Cross and was put into contact with a student group at one of the universities here in Santiago, who were coordinating an effort to provide food parcels to those affected. The university had suspended all lessons/lectures for one week and encouraged it´s students to get involved, both in Santiago and their own communities, to help in any way they could. With the students I have been involved in going door-to-door throughout the city asking for donations of food and essentials. A request on national TV and radio for donations, encouraged many more people to contribute. The university was one centre for these donations and once they began to arrive, we needed to sort and then begin putting together the boxes. There were two types of boxes, the first contained food items including; dried milk, tinned fish, pasta, rice, sugar, salt, tinned tomato paste, beans/lentils/chickpeas, oil, flour etc. whilst the second box was crammed full of soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, toilet rolls, disinfectant etc. Bottles of water were also included in the essentials for these parcels. Over the first few days we put together thousands of these boxes which were shippped south in large containers and distributed to those communities most in need. Other projects I´ve worked on during my initial two weeks here in Chile have included constructing temporary shelters and helping families gather their belongings from their ruined homes and help move them to new temporary accommodation. It´s certainly been an exhausting start to my South American adventure, but one which has given me a first hand insight into the spirit of Chilean people and the love they have for their nation.