SOS Village to open doors to orphans

Soon, 2,500 orphaned children will be making their way to the SOS Village which is due to become operational in the village of Rupar.

The SOS Villages southern branch in Bangalore has plans to open temporary and permanent care centres and balwadis (creches) in the villages and talukas in Gujarat which were recently devastated in the earthquake.

Victor Painadath, Deputy General Secretary of the SOS villages in the southern sector, said that the Gujarat government had given out many misleading estimates on the number of orphaned children in the quake-hit areas.

"We asked the authority concerned to grant us permission to launch a survey in the affected areas so as to get a rough idea as to how many have been left unattended.

"A team of six SOS members went to nearly 73 villages in the four affected talukas. We came up with a rough estimate of nearly 2,500 children who have either lost both their parents or one of them. In Bhachau itself we have identified 750 children who have lost both parents.

"We went back to the taluka office and submitted our findings. The authorities there were quite co-operative and provided us with all the assistance required to get us operational.

"We plan to set up a reception centre to begin with. Here the children below 14 will be identified and classified as to their status. Those children who have lost both parents will be placed in permanent SOS villages which will be located in Baroda and Rajkot.

"Those who have lost one parent will be placed in a temporary centre. Then we will also take care of children who have either one or both parents on the injured list. They will be taken care by our volunteers along with some local ladies.

"They will be returned once their parents recover and are able to look after children. This is essential because the children who have no one to look after them have already learnt to stretch out their hands to beg," he said.

He said that a day to day report on the SOS activities in the effected areas will be submitted to the RDO of that particular area on a weekly basis.

"Other than the care centres we are also planning to have 25 balwadis established in the affected areas. We have almost finished the ground work. The tents for running the balwadis have already been pitched. We are looking for local women to take part in the activities of the balwadis so that the children do not get bored and leave.

"One of our main focuses in all the activities that we launch in the affected areas is to gradually get the children out of the mental trauma they are facing.

"The balwadis, apart from educating the children, will take care of their nutrition. They will provide food. The children will also get a health check done by two SOS doctors," he said.