Visiting the Tent City at the South Road Properties (SRP) in Cebu City

The Family Rebuilding Center at the SRP, also known as Tent City, is a plot of land set aside by the Cebu City government in partnership with the National Red Cross for the victims of Yolanda. The refugees are well-cared-for and several Cebuanos visit the center each day to personally bring donations and gifts. Most of the residents of the Family Rebuilding Center are locals of Tacloban, Samar, and Ormoc who all suffered greatly due to the supertyphoon Yolanda.

We visited one day to bring some donations and talk with some of its new residents.

The relocation/evacuation site is very easy to find. In fact, it sits right next to the bridge which connects the whole South Road Properties to the city of Talisay.

Family Rebuilding Center

Welcome to Cebu’s Family Rebuilding Center for victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda.

Guests are welcome at any time at the Tent City. However, they have to (as much as possible) inform the center prior to the visit in order to not disturb the ‘residents.’

The tents are pitched in front of the Department of Public Works and Highways Regional Office at the South Road Properties. Rows of tents can be seen on this tract of land which has been unused since the completion of the SRP.

The Residents of the Tent City

A resident kid walks through rows of tents at the rebuilding center.

The bathrooms and washrooms in the photo were specially built for the residents of the SRP Tent City. In fact, some of them were still undergoing finishing touches when we visited.

We got a chance to interact with this couple from Tacloban. According to them, they are very lucky to still be alive. They added that they are even luckier to have landed safely in Cebu where people readily helped them.

My mom also got a chance to have a heart-warming chit-chat with this lady who was also from Tacloban City. According to her, her experience during the supertyphoon was something that she would never forget.