* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“Over 90% of the houses in this village need to be rebuilt,” the headmaster of Buzhigao School said as we arrived in Buzhigao village to conduct an assessment of the damage and the impact of the earthquake on children. As he showed us around the grounds of the school, he brushed away tears as he recounted how one high school student in the village had died.
The overall structure of the school had actually survived commendably compared to most of the houses in the village, yet the apex of each of the three buildings showed considerable cracks as did each of the classroom walls and the ground was littered with broken roofing tiles. This paled in comparison to the adobe and mud dwellings in the village—most had one or two collapsed walls or a collapsed roof. Many were piles of mud, stone and wood altogether with the exception of doorways that stood like lone sentinels in a sea of debris. All of the toilets we observed, which were all outdoor and made of abode/mud, had collapsed entirely. We found no working toilets in the village.
During our conversation with the headmaster of the school, he thought that the majority of the children in the village were “holding out well” and coping with the disaster. Our own conversations with children, however, highlight children are experiencing a great degree of distress in dealing with and finding ways to cope with the disaster. We spoke with one 13-year old girl together with her kind-hearted and concerned grandfather who could hardly bring herself to look at us and verbalise her feelings at all. Her look and mood was one of utter sadness. She was consoled and offered psychosocial support by trained Save the Children staff.
Another group of 3 girls—ages 15 and 16—talked about the fear they experienced on the morning of the earthquake. All of the girls were outside on the morning of the earthquake, but they still ran in fear. “I injured my knee jumping down an embankment,” one girl recounted. When we inquired if she had received any medical attention, she replied that she hadn’t thought it “serious” enough as compared to the many other injured individuals. “There are no toilets for us to use,” one girl continued, “so we go wherever we can.” “There is also no place for us to bathe; we wish there were a place for us to bathe.” Villagers must walk or travel several kilometres to collect water.
The girls, although coping admirably, appeared quite distraught in talking about their experiences over the past week. “There are not so many girls our age so we often stay home and help out with chores, but we would like more activities and things to do in the daytime. We’d also like new bedding and, of course, a new home,” she concluded.
Save the Children will be providing training in Psychosocial First Aid (PFA) and psychosocial support for over 15 civil society organisations and in coordination with the One Foundation in the in the coming days and will provide technical support to these organisations in implementing protection and psychosocial support programmes over the next several months.
