8 Apr 2014

Child areas set up in Solomons shelters to deal with trauma

12:12 pm on 8 April 2014

The NGO World Vision is setting up child friendly spaces within the evacuation centres housing thousands of people made homeless by last week's floods in Solomon Islands.

Its country director Dr Andrew Catford says often children are the most traumatised by such events.

He says the areas will involve a teacher running games and other activities to try and restore some normality to the children's lives.

"Even just at the camp I was at there were a whole lot of kids sitting out there doing nothing. If they had something to take their minds off it that usually makes a difference, to bring back normality to their lives, a bit of structure and take their minds off what happened in this event. We found the same thing in the tsunami."

Dr Andrew Catford says on Monday World Vision began distributing emergency supplies to the disaster victims in the evacuation centres in Honiara.

The country director, Dr Andrew Catford, says they have come up with a standard pack to give people.

"It is a little different to what we use in other occasions because this is an urban setting but particularly tarpaulins so people can have additional shelter, rope to help with that. But also water is an issue, so jerry cans."

World Vision's Dr Andrew Catford.