Tsunami disaster – countries in crisis

Real lives

UNICEF helps bring smiles back to children

UNICEF's volunteers help children recover from the traumatic experience

CUDDALORE/CHENNAI, India, 17 January 2005 - Two sisters - Vineeta, 11, and Anita, 10 - are busy skipping rope while a group of children cheer. They are relaxed and happy, with smiles on their faces. Their smiles have not been seen much lately, ever since the tsunami ravaged their village and swept away their mother and brother.

“We cannot sleep…our mother would help us go to sleep at night,” says 11-year-old Vineeta. The girls are currently living at their grandmother’s house. Their father has gone to the village of Parangpettai, where the bodies of their mother and brother were found.

Children in the village of Pettoda had always played together. However, after the tsunami struck, the village has been engulfed in grief, and the children have stopped playing. With houses destroyed and the fear of another tsunami, the fun of being a child is lost.

Simple activities, such as skipping rope, can bring back the missing smiles of 11-year-old Suganti.

“We are bored and very sad,” says Padman, a boy from Pettoda. Schools are closed and children have nowhere to spend their days. “Time heals children if they are allowed to return to their normal lives,” says UNICEF State Representative for Tamil Nadu and Kerala, Tim Schaffter.

UNICEF is partnering with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) and the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS), which has a strong presence in the community. Together, they plan to start psychosocial interventions in all of the affected areas of Tamil Nadu. UNICEF will train NYKS volunteers and teachers in identifying signs of trauma in children and helping them in the process of healing.

“Many children were found to be aloof – particularly those whose parents, siblings or friends have died. Some of the older children were reported to have started bedwetting, which is a clear sign of trauma,” says Schaffter. In Pettoda, for instance, children were reported to be lying awake all night, while others had difficulty sleeping.

Children participate in therapeutic games.

However, their healing has begun, with trained volunteers drawing them out of their broken homes and getting them to participate in fun and games. The children are led out to a large field across the street where they can play cricket, rubber rings, skip rope, and enjoy other favorite games. “The response is tremendous…there is not a single child in the village who does not play,” says Mani, a NYKS volunteer.

UNICEF has also distributed more than 400 sport-in-a-box kits, which contain games and play materials. The children love these kits. Anbazahar, a resident of Sonakupam Village, says it is reassuring to hear the laughter of children again in a village that has lost more than 60 lives, half of them being children. “It gives us hope that all is not lost and there is a life ahead,” he says.

As children prepare to leave relief camps, volunteers are making plans to follow them into their villages and continue to support them. Schaffter says that if some children need care and support over a longer period of time, UNICEF will ensure it is provided. “We are with them till they are fully rehabilitated,” he said.