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MLSC partners with LDTF to aid manhoben center
The members of the Micronesian Legal Services Corp., the Lady Diann Torres Foundation, the Bank of Federated States of Micronesia, and the Youth Affairs Office pose for a photo following the donation last Wednesday. (Kimberly A. Bautista)
Micronesian Legal Services Corp. is partnering with the Lady Diann Torres Foundation to help the Chalan Kanoa Manhoben (Youth) Center.
According to Krissta Kirschenheiter, MLSC staff attorney and pro bono coordinator, the Bank of the Federated States of Micronesia donated $5,000 to the MLSC to conduct recovery operations following the onslaught of Super Typhoon Yutu.
“They just heard about some of the work we were doing. We’ve been really actively involved in the VOAD [Voluntary Organizations Active In Disaster]…and we’ve also actively been in the disaster relief center and providing legal education there and taking on clients with [Federal Emergency Management Agency] appeals. They knew that our organization was involved in recovery efforts and they wanted to ask us if we could help do the specific relief effort,” she said.
Kirschenheiter said the MLSC and the Lady Diann Torres Foundation partnered together to assist the youth center in CK “because they already have children coming in and they need services. They already have ukulele classes and they’re talking about doing different types of family activities and so we wanted to be able to partner together and provide these services to the community, starting with the CK community.”
The MLSC and the LDTF want to address the damage the center sustained from Yutu as well as address the legal education needed by the families of the children in the center regarding FEMA appeals.
“The MLSC is going to be doing community education and classes in connection with typhoon recovery like probate classes or any sort of legal education the community might need in connection with recovery,” she said.
Kirschenheiter said this is the first collaboration that MLSC has done with the LDTF.
James Selepeo, Chalan Kanoa Youth center manager, said that their first project would be a community event for the families of CK that would help identify which families need recovery assistance.
The data would then serve as a means to start providing aid.
