Mark Tupaz (not his real name) is 13 years old and has never been in school after his first grade. “Waray kami kwarta pan-eskwela,” (“We have no money for education.”) was all the boy could say.

All his life, he has been helping his mother earn a living by doing laundry work for somebody else. He has a high ambition, and that is to be a doctor someday.

The seemingly good boy contents himself with what the family can provide. Mark has no qualms about their economic state as can be observed with the way he deals with life.

After supertyphoon Yolanda hit Eastern Visayas region on the morning of November 8, 2013, Mark became an orphaned kid, and left to the custody of his two other brothers and a sister. They now stay temporarily at the San Jose Central School, one of the 23 existing evacuation camps, which has a total of 380 family – evacuees.

They used to live in Barangay 88 of San Jose District in Tacloban, where many households were rendered homeless. Mark’s family all the more was thrown into deep poverty after they survived from the killer disaster because no more of their possessions were left.

Mark remembered the tragic incident when her mother was carried by the waters with the storm surge that went with the super storm. She opted to remain with the kid’s stepfather at their home, instead of evacuating to safer grounds. His stepfather attempted to rescue her, but failed.

A team of stress debriefers from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Central Office headed by Marlyn Cumba, came over to look into the children’s situation. Mark was one of those called to join in the therapy sessions conducted in the assigned Child Friendly Space of the evacuation camp. The Child Friendly Space is a strategy the DSWD has introduced for psycho-social support/activities for children – victims of natural/man-made disasters.