UNICEF mobilizing for Qinghai earthquake disaster

Majority of primary schools collapsed, urgent need for tents, winter clothing

BEIJING, 15 April 2010 –UNICEF will send urgently needed relief supplies for children affected by yesterday’s massive earthquake. The response will be coordinated with other UN agencies. The quake heavily damaged parts of remote Yushu Prefecture, a region mostly populated by Tibetan herdsmen. The quake, which was measured 7.1 by Chinese scientists, destroyed much of Jiegu (Pop. 100,000), the main town of Yushu Prefecture.

Approximately 617 deaths have been reported along with 9,110 injuries. Some 313 persons are missing and 100,000 are without shelter. On Wednesday night, many of Jiegu’s residents slept outside in sub-zero temperatures. The total population of Yushu Prefecture is 357,000 and the child population is 122,700.

According to Qinghai health authorities the maternal and child health hospital in Yushu County has collapsed in the earthquake. There is an urgent need for medical supplies and childbirth equipment.
 
“We are organizing assistance to support the Chinese government’s disaster response with a focus on the special needs of children and women,” said Dr. Yin Yin Nwe, UNICEF Representative and UN Disaster Management Team Chair in China. “We are in constant consultation with our government partners to gather necessary information and it appears that there has been extensive destruction to homes, health facilities and schools.” 

According to local education bureau officials, 80 per cent of primary schools and 50 per cent of secondary schools in Yushu have been severely damaged affecting 22,719 students and 1,086 teachers. Although the quake struck before the start of classes on Wednesday morning, about half of the students in the sparsely populated region attend boarding schools. Authorities have requested UNICEF support to provide school tents, warm clothing, quilts and learning kits. 

As of late Wednesday at least 56 students and five teachers had been reported killed in the quake. Many more students are missing and thought to be buried. Complete information is still difficult to obtain in the remote mountainous area on the border between Qinghai Province and Tibet.

The most urgent humanitarian needs right now are for food, water, tents, shelter, clothes, blankets, quilts, essential household items, medical supplies and rescue equipment. At this time of year in this mountainous region temperatures reach below freezing overnight. UNICEF has emergency stocks of school tents, children’s winter clothes and blankets on hand and ready to be dispatched.

About UNICEF in China:
UNICEF first assisted China between 1947 and 1951, providing emergency services, food and nutrition, health and hygiene training during and after the war of liberation. In 1979 UNICEF officially commenced its cooperation with the Government of China to support child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence.

Courtesy of Unicef

Just got this press release in my email today anf thought it was worth posting in its entirety. Even as the media spotlight on Haiti fails, let’s not forget the threats facing its children, who are multilayered vulnerable - on top of the vulnerability they had before the earthquake because of their poverty, they now also face threats that come with homelessness, hygiene, disease and a shattered or shaky adult support system around them that would otherwise (or should otherwise) be watching out for them. So it’s good that groups such as ECPAT, Unicef, and Mais, the Movement for the International Self-Development of Solidarity, and the National Council for Children  are building and maintaining child protection efforts. Here also, is a link to a just-released Unicef report detailing what the agency has done for children in the three months following the Jan. 12 earthquake.  It can be found at: Here’s the release I talked about first:

ECPAT-USA’s (End Child Pornography and Trafficking), Dominican Republic Counterpart, MAIS (Movement for the International Self-Development

ECPAT-USA’s (End Child Pornography and Trafficking), Dominican Republic Counterpart, MAIS (Movement for the International Self-Development of Solidarity), along with border organizations, UNICEF and the National Council for Children (CONANI), will begin a coordinated effort to detail the extent of the trafficking crisis and recommend an appropriate response to the problem.

ECPAT-USA has donated $15,000 to MAIS to help them with this project. Below is the latest press release by ECPAT-USA detailing how MAIS will use these funds.

———————————————-

March 12, 2010 (New York, NY) – ECPAT-USA, a nonprofit organization that advocates for policies to protect sexually exploited and trafficked children, announced that it has donated $15,000 to its Dominican Republican counterpart, MAIS (Movement for the International Self-Development of Solidarity).  The funds will be used to document the increasing numbers of trafficked children crossing the northern region of the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic following Haiti’s devastating earthquake in January.

MAIS will work with representatives of other child welfare agencies, including UNICEF and the National Council for Children (CONANI), as well as border organizations in a coordinated effort to detail the extent of the crisis.  A combined report on their findings from the six-month project will be submitted to Dominican authorities, along with recommendations to help establish appropriate responses to the problem.

Leading the monitoring program are MAIS coordinators Maria Josefina Paulino and Luis Mendez Jimenez. They noted that the deadly earthquake has severely weakened border control, and this has led to more young children being trafficked out of Haiti and transported to the streets of Dominican Republic.  The children are compelled to earn money through such activities as begging, shining shoes, and selling peanuts or eggs to meet quotas established by their adult captors. They are often subject to physical and psychological abuse, or used as mules in drug trafficking and delivery.

“The situation has been worsening for several years, but we have especially noticed an increase in the presence of pre-adolescent children after the earthquake in January.  The children turn up in major tourist destinations such as Santo Domingo, Santiago, as well as Bavaro, Puerto Plata, and Punta Cana,” said Mr. Jimenez.  “They can be found begging at traffic lights, shopping malls and bus terminals, usually controlled by adults who pay for their capture in Haiti and their illegal transfer to the country.”

Carol Smolenski, Executive Director of ECPAT-USA, said donations to MAIS and similar organization are critical to help address a problem that has quickly become a global epidemic. 

“Children have always been easy victims for traffickers, but major disasters such as Haiti’s devastating earthquake create social and political chaos that disrupt families and severely impact the ability of law enforcement agencies to maintain civil control.  Criminal elements move in to exploit the situation at a time when governments and normal social safety nets are at their weakest.”

She added: “When offering donations, supplies and medical assistance to these devastated countries, it’s important to also consider agencies like MAIS, who sometimes are the last hope for many of these exploited children.”

In the past year, ECPAT International partnered with ethical retailer The Body Shop to campaign against global sex trafficking.  In the U.S., 60% of the proceeds from the sales from The Body Shop’s “Soft Hands, Kind Hearts” Hand Cream go to ECPAT-USA.  The organization also promotes the adoption of the Code of Conduct within the hotel industry and among tour operators and other members of the tourism sector.  The Code requires them to implement practical measures to prevent child sex tourism.

For more information, visit www.ecpatusa.org/.  You can also join ECPAT-USA on Facebook http://bit.ly/d63Xie) and follow them on Twitter (twitter.com/ecpatusa).

It is not necessarily healthy to spirit them away from their country, from the language they speak and from the remaining relatives, neighbors and friends who constitute their support system. Nor is it accurate to assume — as illustrated by the recent case of the group detained by Haitians authorities for trying to leave the country with children said to be orphans — that children who survived the earthquake have no living family left. Or that if they do have family, those relatives would not want to take care of these children. That is an assumption that dehumanizes Haitians and make the children into little more than commodities to be shuttled around to other adults in other locations.

Again, many people may approach helping children in Haiti and other poor or battered countries with heartfelt intentions to do good. But intentions are not the best basis for deciding how to aid these kids in a positive way.

On a different note from the same story, let me also emphasize the point that children are still waiting for a variety of services, the reopening of schools chief among them. Few things are healthier for kids in a time of disaster, chaos or instability than the children being able to attend classes every day. Education is — or should be — a child’s right no matter the locale or circumstances. I know there is enormous need in Haiti after the earthquake — piled on top of the needs that existed before it — and that relief and development programs are never executed as fast as we all would like. Still, here’s hoping that schools for as many Haitian children as possible are organized and running as soon as possible.  

Now the IRIN story:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, 22 March 2010 (IRIN) - Mami George, a retired teacher, sits in a courtyard at the small orphanage she manages in San Marie, Port-au-Prince. The area, once home to 2,000 residents, now accommodates some 6,000 people who lost their homes in the January earthquake.

 George began feeding the orphans living on the streets near the site and within days found herself caring for more than 50 children aged between three and 15.

 Only 500 orphans have been registered with the different local and international agencies in Haiti since the quake, not including the ones living in orphanages before the disaster. According to local caretakers, most children who had one living relative were taken in by them, explaining the relatively low number of orphans. The children in George’s care, however, have no one.

 In a small compound, living in tents donated by French volunteers, these children are cared for by a team of local helpers. Food is distributed daily by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) kitchen in the camp, with 1,300 calories crammed into each serving of porridge or rice and beans - enough to keep these children alive but not enough to drive away the hunger pangs.

 Another 900 meals are distributed to school children on the site as part of a WFP food distribution scheme. It plans to provide hot meals to some 170,000 school children nationwide. State schools are closed until 1 April, but local NGOs operate makeshift schools in some areas. In the interim some 2.5 million children remain without access to classes.

 More than two months after the quake, nobody has come to claim any of the children in Mami George’s care.

 The children are stressed, says George, pointing to several mattresses drying on a nearby roof. The children have gone back to bed-wetting after the quake.

 Volunteers from different countries visit the orphanage compound once or twice a week and are an instant attraction for the children. With no toys or playground, every visitor is a welcome distraction. “We cope with what we have, but we need plastic bed sheets, clothes, snacks, toys,” George told IRIN.

 Nineteen volunteer caretakers work in 12-hour shifts, every day of the week, but are unable to address the children’s psychological needs, and local Haitian psychologists are a rarity.

 The International Organization for Migration has opened a psycho-social cluster for NGOs dealing with post-traumatic stress but it is difficult to access 1.3 million people living in 400 temporary sites. The children will have to wait - for assistance, for clothes, for schools to re-open.

 Donors! You read it. Now pay for it:

http://www.irinnews.org/donors.aspx

First, though, I need to comment on the press release below that I got last week. It laments that kids in an orphanage in Haiti weren’t allowed out of the country. I know nothing about this group, never heard of it. But the attitude that permeates this press release is that children are commodities to be moved around at the will of unrelated adults who think they know best. And when they’re poor children, especially poor children of color, why, it’s even more reason for foreigners to move them away from their homeland. What arrogance. What cavalier dismissal of these kids’ homeland, no matter how poor or ailing it is, and the attachments they hold to it, not to mention to whatever relatives they still may have in Haiti. It’s a good bet that some of these “orphans” still have living parents. I do feel for the prospective adoptive parents, but the kids should be the most important consideration, not any adults. So cheers for the Haitian government in slowing down these kids departure. In crises like the one Haitians are going through now, it’s way too easy to take advantage of kids. This story from Reuters confirms that such exploitation is, indeed, happening in Haiti.

The press release from the group, For His Glory Adoption Outreach, is pasted after descriptions taken verbatim from organizations’ Web sites of what some child-focused groups are doing in Haiti.

UNICEF

Photo from UNICEF

Assistance to unaccompanied children, who have lost or became separated from their families, is a focus of UNICEF’s Haitian humanitarian operations, in the wake of the deadly earthquake which struck on 12 January.

While it continues daily delivery of critical life-saving supplies such as water, nutrition, shelter and medicine (so far, UNICEF supplies for 250,000 children have arrived and are being distributed), UNICEF and partners like Save the Children have also begun registering unaccompanied children found in the streets of  Port au Prince. A programme will then begin to trace the families of these children, if they exist.

“Safe Spaces” for unaccompanied children including infants are now set up in the capital. These locations allow UNICEF and its partners to assist and protect children who have nowhere else to go, until their families are found or alternative arrangements are made.

Save the Children

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Jan. 30, 2010) — Seventeen days after the catastrophic 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, Save the Children is distributing food rations to 200,000 children and families in partnership with the World Food Program.

Latest Field Report Highlights

• 144,158 beneficiaries have been reached to date. including medical supplies for about 85,000 in Leogane, Jacmel and Port-au-Prince.
• Our mobile clinic in Leogane continues seeing patients, roughly 100 per day. 70 health workers were trained in Leogane and another mobile clinic was established in Jacmel.
• 16 Child Friendly Spaces were established in Jacmel and Port-au-Prince, providiing activities for over 10,400 children for the past 10 days.

Orphans Blocked From Departing Haiti

Undefined Haitian exit procedures halts departure of humanitarian
paroled orphans

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (MMD Newswire) January 26, 2010 --
Seventy-nine of the 106 children from Maison des Enfants de Dieu
(Children of the House of God) orphanage, who were granted
humanitarian parole, arrived in Florida on Saturday, January 23rd.
The Haitian Government has blocked the remaining 27 children,
including the adopted son of the For His Glory (FHG) Adoption
Outreach President, Kim Harmon, from departing Port-au-Prince. In
a surprise announcement, Haitian Prime Minister Bellerive stated
that all future cases of humanitarian parole would have to complete
an exit process with his office. He has not yet defined this exit
process so no action can be taken to bring the remaining children to
their adoptive parents in the United States.

The Maison des Enfants de Dieu orphanage staff announced that
they soon would be accepting 30 children orphaned since the
January 12th earthquake. Over the past week, the orphanage has
received numerous requests to take newly orphaned children. In
one instance alone, it was asked to accept 70 orphans. The
orphanage and FHG remain firmly committed to the children and the
people of Haiti. Pat Flowers, an FHG board member who has been
in Haiti this past week consulting with the orphanage staff, agreed,
"we must act responsibly in accepting new orphans to ensure that
we will have sufficient supplies and facilities to care for these
children." Pat explained that not only is each child, who is united with

adoptive parents, helped, but much-needed space is opened up at
the orphanage to help other children. He added, "The need in
Port-au-Prince is great."

Kim Harmon reiterated the need to quickly complete the departure
process of the remaining 27 children, who have been granted
humanitarian parole. She stated "These children have adoptive
families waiting to care for them in the United States. The faster we
resolve the departure issue, the quicker we will be able to reach out
to those unfortunate children in Port-au-Prince who now have no
one." FHG urges adoptive parents, supporters and all those
concerned about the welfare of the orphans in Haiti to contact their
Congressmen, Senators, Governors and the White House to urge
the Secretary of State to quickly resolve this issue with Prime Minister Bellerive.