Children in Relief Camps: Urgent Needs
June 7, 2002
An Appeal from ‘SPRAT´ - Society For Promotion of Rational Thinking
Circulated by ( youthreachcommunity@vsnl.net)
Dear Member,
As a consequence of the tragedy that has taken place in Gujarat a huge number of children have been affected. These children are in relief camps and have largely been ignored. The trauma level is very high due to all that they have seen and been through.
There are 40 camps with approximately 200 children in each. There is an urgent need, both for people and materials.
An organisation by the name of ‘SPRAT´
Society For Promotion of Rational Thinking´ in Ahemdabad has tied up with a number of individuals here and has the following requirements:
What they aim to do is:
Provide an outlet for these children and try and bring some form of normalcy back by taking their attention away from all they have undergone.
Manpower Required:
- Professional Counselors who can start work with the very seriously traumatized children
- People with no specific qualifications but who are good at doing fun activities with children such as singing, playing games, drawing, theatre etc. (Due to the large number of children per camp the activities cannot be very material oriented, hence the person needs to be creative and enterprising)
- One person who is willing to stay on for a long period to coordinate these efforts
Material Required:
- Paper
- Crayons
- Books for the children to read( Hindi or Gujarati)
- Prickly Heat Powder ( 1500 boxes to start off)
Resources:
- They have organised places for the volunteers to stay in however this is very basic accommodation
- They are trying to raise money at an individual level for the basic expenses of the volunteers, self supporting volunteers would be ideal
We realize that nobody can go for very long period of times so if mobilisation of volunteers is possible in groups of 4 to 5 people for around a week each. Again all this is very fluid and the need for people is so great that whoever can go for whatever time is a great asset.
If you would like to donate materials you can drop them off at
C-30 West End Colony
If you would like to volunteer please contact Youthreach either at this e-mail id or at 6533525/20/30 and ask for Shabnam Sahni