Healing through play: Child protection during disaster relief

This picture is from an intervention following floods in the summer of 2010 in Braila at a temporary relief camp at the Salt Lake.

On Friday May 13, during the National Week of Volunteering, AMURTEL organized a presentation  “Healing through play: Child protection during disaster relief” about its use of “Child Friendly Spaces” during disaster relief.

The picture below is from a Child Friendly Space in Haiti, following the earthquake.

The process of healing after a major disaster may take months, even years. However, disaster relief interventions do not consist only in medical relief or specialized search and rescue operations.  There is also an urgent need after a disaster to address the social and emotional needs of the affected people. Small children need safe places to play to return to a more normal rhythm of life. AMURTEL created “Child Friendly Spaces” in its interventions after the tsunami in Indonesia as well as after the earthquake in Haiti. Following a training on this type of intervention, our Romanian team organized a short intervention at the “Salt Lake” in Braila in the summer of 2010, offering an educational and recreational program for both children and parents.

The presentation described the interventions above as well as offering information about how to create similar programs following disasters.