A portrait of a girl with a bouquet of yellow roses in her hands at Cochabamba-Jordán Bolivia
In March 2007 Bolivian families were struggling to survive following the worst floods in 25 years.
- Lisa
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A portrait of a girl with a bouquet of yellow roses in her hands at Cochabamba-Jordán Bolivia
In March 2007 Bolivian families were struggling to survive following the worst floods in 25 years.
Approximately 70,000 families were affected by the floods, and many had to abandon their homes and possessions. The Bolivian President Evo Morales declared a national state of disaster in the country. SOS Children's Villages provided flood-hit families from the affected rural regions with emergency aid in the form of aid parcels and day-care centres for children.
Here is Alfonso Lupo, the national director of SOS Children's Villages in Bolivia, talking about the situation, at the time, of flood-hit families and children in the Santa Cruz and Beni districts:
What are the living conditions like for the flood-hit families and children who had to flee their homes?
Alfonso Lupo: Many families and children from the flooded areas have relocated to the motorways as well as a kind of dike in the city centre of Santa Cruz. They live, cook and spend their time there in very crowded conditions. All schools have been transformed into emergency shelters, so there are no classes for the children. This concentration of people facilitates emergency aid work, but also leads to other problems and precarious conditions...
What are hygiene conditions like and what about health issues?
Alfonso Lupo: The situation is critical and everyone is very worried. This land is a tropical climate with temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius, which is now surrounded by a lot of water due to the floods. The water is already contaminated by human waste due to the large concentration of people. There is a danger of major water- and vector-borne diseases breaking out and spreading, primarily gastrointestinal diseases, but also dengue and mayaro, a parasitical virus transmitted by mosquitoes and characterized by high fever and an aching body.
How is family life being affected?
Alfonso Lupo: Life has completely changed for families and children, who are now solely focused on survival. They dream of returning to their homes and former activities. But this will probably not be possible. If they dont have the means to reconstruct their homes and livelihoods, they may have to relocate... but where to and with what means? What is going to happen when they realise they have nothing? There is a big risk of family disintegration, so the reconstruction of livelihoods has to be one of the main goals. But so far, families are still united and SOS Children's Villages is helping to ensure this remains the case, which is why we have named our emergency support 'families help families'. If families are intact then the children will have a better chance to develop.
What longer-term consequences are expected?
Alfonso Lupo: After the floods, other emergencies will emerge which are equally serious and complicated. When the floods subside, only then will people know how much they have actually lost. We want to underline that this disaster is likely to worsen, and that people will need help in recovering their material resources and in rebuilding their livelihoods. These people were already poor and now the floods have taken the little they had. What will remain and what will these people do later on? The impact of this disaster is going to be huge in regions which were inhabited by cattle breeders. And not just for the big cattle breeders but also for poorer breeders, who earned their living with five to ten cows and through other forms of agriculture. The possibility of relocating people to other areas of the country is something that is still being evaluated by authorities.
- Mary
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Children holding plates and cups at the emergency relief program in Benguela Angola.
I've been finding out about the legacy of war in Angola, and how SOS Children is helping children and families to have a new start.
The sound of children singing can often be heard echoing around the desolate orphanage, which is now receiving support from the SOS Social Centre in the coastal town of Benguela. It's a song sung by a generation that, like much of the population, has no first-hand knowledge of a peaceful reality. Angola, with its breath-taking scenery and white washed beaches, is not only a beautiful country, it is potentially one of Africa's wealthiest. It is rich in oil and diamonds, but this south-west African nation is still deeply scarred from the almost 27-year long conflict between the government and rebel Unita movement, which ended wit h the signing of a ceasefire agreement in April 2002.
The civil war has taken a devastating toll. The conflict killed about a million people, uprooted millions more and left a generation which knows nothing but war. The vast majority of the country's four million internally displaced people are children, and some 100,000 youngsters have been separated from their families.
During the war more than 5,000 schools were destroyed and today more than 50% of Angolan children have no access to proper education. The majority of the country's hospitals and health facilities were also levelled during the fighting. The fertile soil is strewn with landmines and most of the infrastructure lies in ruins. Grinding poverty is reality for most of Angola's 13 million people.
The ceasefire only lifted a curtain that hid the full impact of the war on the civilian population in the countryside. Malnutrition among people emerging from the conflict zones "is one of the worst seen in Africa in the past decade" said Médecins Sans Frontières when the shocking reality of what life had become became clear.
"The peace has had no meaningful impact on peoples lives," says Jozsef Szalontai, project director for SOS Children's Villages Angola. General living conditions for the Angolan people continue to be catastrophic. The lack of seeds and implements, bad roads and transport system means the agriculture system that the government was hoping to put in place is not working. As there is no investment in the country there are no job opportunities or production. The road to restoration for Angola is a long one and it can only be hoped that in-house fighting because of poverty and disaffection does not once again erupt into another war.
SOS Children's Villages started its work offering care to the weakest victims of the war in and around the relatively safe location of Lubango, the capital of the southern province Huila, nine years ago. However, before construction of the first SOS Children's Village could be completed, a far-reaching emergency vaccination campaign was launched to fight a meningitis epidemic that killed hundreds of children. It was to be the first of a number of SOS Emergency Relief Programmes.
In 1997, SOS Children's Village Lubango implemented additional relief measures, which continue today. Initially around 400 children suffering from malnutrition received one nutritious meal per day.
Then a year later, in response to the huge number of refugees, a second food distribution centre for children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with special needs was established in a slum area.
When the conflict escalated in 1998, a further 600 malnourished refugee children were fed at both of these sites. The SOS Medical Centre in Lubango carried out another vaccination programme in co-operation with the local authorities, and today continues to treat 450 patients per month.
Since the end of the war, inflation has continued to rise. The mothers at SOS Children's Village Lubango are struggling with their budgets which impacts on their morale. Staff are happy about the peace but are battling with the limited quantities of food that is available and the high prices.
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