Stephanie Hochstetter (World Food Programme) on the situation in the country - Press Conference

Stephanie, great to see you.
I can tell you you're outside.
We're joined by Stephanie Hochstetter, World Foo Program's Country Director in Venezuela.
I will give you the floor and then we'll take some questions and welcome.
Thank you for taking the time.
Go ahead, Stephanie.
Thank you very much and good afternoon.
I am indeed outside.
I'm speaking to you from La Guida, one of the hardest hit areas after the back to back earthquakes that struck Venezuela last Wednesday.
The situation here as it can happen in any catastrophe of this magnitude is devastating.
One man I met yesterday told me holding his three sons by the hand two years, four years, and five years that he had no shelter, no food, no water.
The mother had been taken to the hospital in Caracas.
They lost family members and neighbors.
And it is just heartbreaking to see the despair.
I am right now in the first food distribution point that the World Food Program has set up in the temporary integrated service centers, where the government has requested the UN to provide support and where the operations are already underway.
Search and rescue efforts are now giving way to a full blown humanitarian response, and the need for food, safe water, shelter, and just essential services is immediate and critical.
The World Food Program has reached 1,200 people, so 1,200 with emergency food parcels in a couple of days and we're rapidly scaling up.
We plan to reach half 1 million people in shelters over the next three months.
We want to permit parent distribution and integrate one place of food assistance and other critical means.
This has been possible thanks to the full collaboration of the authorities and also at local level.
Our teams in the field have met people who have said that they are now concerned of how to get food on a daily basis.
Some of them still cook, but it's currently difficult to buy food in the current context, which is why we're also providing food to them to cook and we're also providing ready to eat food.
WFP has more than 3,000 metric tons of food in country, so that's enough to feed more than 10,000 families for two months and we are procuring additional supplies.
There is food availability in Venezuela, so we are procuring locally.
And in addition, we have available stocks in Colombia that can be rapidly reallocated to support the emergency response.
The ports of Puerto Cabelo and La Guaida remain fully operational.
So if we need, there is the option of additional shipments.
More than 1,400 metric tons of partner relief items are also prepositioned at the WFP managed Humanitarian Response depot in Panama and it's ready for dispatch and WFP has an unmatched logistical footprint in the states hardest hit by the earthquakes and across the region.
So in coordination with the authorities, scaling up will be possible very quickly.
The earthquakes, have struck many families, some of which are already struggling to afford basic food.
And now with their livelihoods shattered, the infrastructure severely damaged, many face very real danger of being pushed further into hardship.
And what we have learned from other earthquakes of this magnitude is that when the stoplight fades, the needs do not.
And this is why we are calling from the onset for sustained support to ensure that families are not trapped in a prolonged cycle of food insecurity.
Our initial appeal is of $50 million to provide lifesaving food assistance up to half 1 million people over the next three months, along with critical logistics and emergency communication support.
As a fuller picture of needs emerge, we will review our plans and expand our response to include recovery operations.
But for now, our focus is very clear.
We continue working with the authorities to move very quickly to reach people where they are and to maintain the flow of assistance to those who need it the most.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
We'll take some questions, Gabriel.
Thank you for the briefing, Stephanie.
This is Gabriel Azando from Al Jaeera English.
Hopefully you can hear us okay.
It sounds like from WFP's perspective, where a lot of the prepositioned stocks we're at are really helping get what you need to people that need it.
It sounds like the response has been all things considered pretty effective.
At least that's my assessment on your briefing.
Can you just tell us two things? What is the main challenge that you're facing now Number one.
Number two, what's the situation with the international airport in Caracas? Is it operational or not, and is that really affecting your work at all? It sounds like it's not given the ports are open, but can you just clarify that? But particularly what the main challenge is? Thank you.
I think the challenges are, as in any other catastrophe of this magnitude, it's just the setting up and reaching the people as quickly as possible.
The prepositioning of food in the country did help very much because we already had the food in the country.
But at the same time, we're not sure how to the extent of the needs.
So we are working with our colleagues in Colombia to get the food we need eventually in case of need.
So it's moving as in any emergency of this size.
As for the airport, I understand it's not no commercial flights are going in.
Commercial flights are flying into Valencia and ports are functioning but for humanitarian assistance only.
Thank you.
Iam then Evelyn.
Thank you.
My name is Sam City newspaper.
I have a follow up on the food issue.
So how long do you like the estimation you have the food you have is going to be enough for which period of time? And then what about other needs? I know it's not WFP are you working with other organization and organizations regarding other needs to meet them? Thank you.
Go ahead.
Go ahead, Stephanie.
I No, like I said, this is our initial response is for 10,000 families, and we will feed them right here in the country in La Waida and then we will assess the other states because it's not Lawida is the hardest hit.
It is where the majority of buildings were just toppled.
It was very a touristic area of the country, and therefore, the level of the concentration of population is greater than in other areas.
But it's so for three months, we have 10,000 families and we will what we have in the country.
But as I said before, we are procuring more.
And if we don't have enough in the country, depending on the needs we find, we can bring in from Colombia.
As for the integrated response, we are working very closely with all of the humanitarian partners to make sure that these centers where the government has asked us to integrate services cover all the needs, medicines, care, psychological support, food, water, electricity, telecommunications.
So it's slowly shelter, everything that is required to help people and you know, at the outset or just for now and until a more permanent solution is found so that they have the necessary support for all services that they might require to have them here concentrated.
Of course, there will be communities that are further to reach, and those will have to have a different kind of approach where we will need to get there because the distances won't be they won't be able to travel to the integrated centers over.
Thank you, Evelyn.
Thank you very much Evelyn Leopold Deck Hammersld Fund for journalists.
Was the country functioning properly before the quakes, before the disaster? I'm sorry, there was some noise, but if I heard your question correctly, it was if the country was functioning properly before the disaster? Yes.
Thank you.
Correct.
I mean, the country was functioning as any country might function.
I arrived I was appointed to Venezuela on just recently.
I arrived on the 19th of April.
I arrived in the airport of Mactla, you know, regular services.
The city works as any other city.
I was looking for an apartment to settle down.
The office is working.
Our programs were flowing.
I presented credentials to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
So the country was working and the shock of this double earthquake just shatters any sense of normality across because even though there are centers where there is that were more affected, it still impacts the country as a whole.
Acute, Noreen.
Thank you very much.
My name is Noreen Hussein with IPS News.
Just to get perhaps a broader image of WFP's operations before the earthquakes, how many people were WFP supporting through its programs before the earthquakes? Just ask to clarify again, how many people have you been able to reach out to since then? So before the emergency, WP's operation was reaching 500,000 people through school meals program and community interventions.
And now that there's a shift in that we will need to integrate this emergency response as quickly as possible.
We've already attended 1,200 people in the past few days, and we will continue to scale up as needed.
Thank you, Zina.
Thank you.
I'm Zina for IMR Free and Homeland News.
My question is the budget that you are planning to spend in this crisis because the damage looks severe damages.
Do you think that the budget that you have now will carry all this disaster? No.
I think the budget we have now will definitely not cover the whole of the disaster.
That is why WFP issued an initial appeal of $50 million to begin to cover and assess for the first three months all the needs of the populations that will require food assistance in different modalities.
Okay.
Do you think there are people who are countries that will help you in this crisis in the future, if you need any funding, extra funding? I think the solidarity not only of countries, but also the population as a whole is just stales when catastrophes of this magnitude happen.
You know, the first reaction of the population in Venezuela, you would see you would have trouble getting to La Guida because of the amount of motorcycles and trucks and cars and just anything that would move to La Guida full of juice, water, arepas, just anything that represented immediate help for the population.
And I think countries have also stepped up immediately to all due to the noise.
I also stepped up immediately to determine what else is needed to fill these gaps in the aid the country is receiving.
Thank you.
Great.
Stephanie, thank you so much for taking the time.
I know you have a lot of stuff to do, but we really appreciate you taking a few minutes to talk to the journalists here.
We wish you and the whole UN family the best and we thank you for everything you're doing.
We hope to see you back soon.
Thank you very much.
Bye.