Children are seen crying at night and women break down narrating that fateful night’s experience. People’s Rural Education Movement (PREM) and Youth for Social Development (YSD) are addressing the immediate needs of the children by providing baby food, tarpaulin, and essential commodities like bleaching powder, candles and solar lights to the households.
Out of the 137 slums in Brahmapur, PREM and YSD have intervened in 62 slums, catering to 4,800 families and 8,200 children. They are being supported by Humara Bachpan a national campaign that has been advocating for safe and healthy living conditions for young children growing up in urban poverty in India.
Dr Jacob Thyundyl of PREM has appraised the Commissioner and Mayor of Brahmapur to provide temporary short term shelters in the line of Mamta Gruhas that were built during 1999 Super Cyclone to house children, women and the elderly. These temporary shelters will protect them from the inclement weather, harassment and can also be learning and day care centres for children.
“Children are badly affected in disasters, neglected and invisible when the relief and rehabilitation takes place. The emphasis is always on brick and mortar and never on the emotional trauma affecting children. The evacuation and nights spent in dark relief centres has invoked fear in the children. Psycho-social counselling would promote calming and connectedness, that would allow a child to come out of the panic created by the disaster,” said regional campaign coordinator, Humara Bachpan Sradhanjali Sahu.