More than two weeks after the devastating earthquake which ripped through large areas of Northern Pakistan and India, thousands of survivors including many children, are still homeless and in need of emergency aid. The relief efforts of SOS Children's Villages for survivors in quake-hit Azad Kashmir continue.
Today, a plane carrying some 80,000 units of energy bars and 100,000 surgical masks, equipped with three layers and which also serve for the protection of droplet infection, arrived at the airport in Islamabad. These goods were purchased and sent to Pakistan by SOS Children's Villages Norway, in cooperation with the Norwegian foreign ministry, who also ordered 720 tents from China which will be delivered to the quake-hit regions within the next days.
SOS Children's Villages will also expand its existing children's village in Dhodial to create additional homes in a family environment for children who could not be reunited with their families. An acre of land adjacent to this children's village in the Northwest Frontier Province will be purchased, on which an additional five SOS family houses will be constructed.
However, the first priority will be to provide unaccompanied children with temporary shelter and care until they can be reunited with their families, and then to ensure that the families have the means and the resources to care for these children. To provide this form of temporary care, SOS Children's Villages hopes to create an emergency shelter at its complex in Muzaffarabad - providing this complex is determined safe.
The recently constructed but still uninhabited SOS Children's Village in Muzaffarabad was badly damaged in the 8 October earthquake. An engineer inspected the complex on Saturday, 22 October, and determined that some buildings were safe and could be used as emergency shelters. However, further expert-opinion is required following yet another earthquake which struck the region on Sunday, 23 October.
Immediately following the 8 October earthquake, SOS Children's Villages transported and distributed blankets and tents, as well as relief care packages including dry food, milk and water, for more than 1,000 people in Muzaffarabad. These relief care packages were assembled by a group of volunteer students from Islamabad.
SOS Children's Villages has been carrying out humanitarian work in Pakistan since 1975 and currently operates seven children's villages, six youth facilities, seven schools, four vocational training centres, four social centres and two medical centres.