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China

Celebrating recovery in communities rattled by earthquake

Filed by: Zhang Jia
Program Coordinator

Written in collaboration with Liu Wanlan, Program Logistics Officer.

The first Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) after a disaster is a welcomed ceremony. It is a time of renewal — a chance for communities to honor the sacrifice many families have suffered, and look toward building a better future.

In the midst of this ongoing two-week festival, we are celebrating a successful project helping kids in remote China recover after their communities were rattled by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake last April.

In the days after the quake, we distributed hygiene supplies to meet the emergency needs of families in the hardest-to-reach areas, and later helped reopen kindergartens to give kids a safe place to go while their parents worked to rebuild.

We also implemented our Comfort for Kids program to provide long-term emotional support for the area’s affected children, who are especially vulnerable after trauma. Now nine months after the quake — in communities formerly ravaged by disaster — students once again gather to laugh, run and play.