Children in Disasters: 5th Anniversary of Hurricane Mitch

On the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Mitch, which killed more than ten thousand as it swept across Central America in the early hours of 30 October 1998, the children’s organisation Plan, is calling for donors and aid agencies to learn lessons from what communities affected by this and other disasters have to say about their experiences of recovery.
 
In After the Cameras have Gone, a report released on Thursday 30 November, Plan looks at the long-term recovery of families who survived Mitch and other disasters around the world.  It says that while emergency aid is a lifeline, children’s essential emotional needs and rights are often overlooked in the scramble to provide the food, shelter, and medical help needed for their immediate survival.

Over the past five years Plan has worked closely with children, their carers, and community leaders directly affected by Mitch as well as other disasters.  The organisation consulted them about their needs and involved them in decisions about post-disaster reconstruction.

John Greensmith, Plan’s International Executive Director says:
“Images of vulnerable children are frequently presented as the icons of disasters, creating the impression that immediate relief efforts will solve the problems.  But our experience shows that their long-term needs are often overlooked.  

“We endorse the communities in their assertions that disasters do not end when the TV cameras go home.  Children, who often suffer severe emotional or developmental damage, cannot return to normal without effective counselling or other long-term help.”

Whilst much has been rebuilt, people who lost homes, livelihoods and family members to Mitch are still living the disaster today.  After meeting children’s immediate survival needs in the aftermath of Mitch, Plan staff in the region found that:

• Listening to teachers and parents, who reported children suffering from nightmares, insomnia, agoraphobia and other symptoms of emotional trauma, led Plan to set up specialist counselling programs for affected youngsters.  In Honduras, ten thousand children were found to be suffering from psychological problems.
• Asking children to identify their own needs was invaluable, as some of the children’s most important requests would never have been thought of by adults.  For example, in Honduras children asked for their homes to be rebuilt with a separate bedroom for the children so that child abuse, which had been common in their former overcrowded housing conditions, would be avoidable.
• Involving children and teenagers in reconstruction helped to rebuild their confidence and teach them new skills.

The study, which draws on the lessons of Mitch as well as other disasters such as the El Salvador earthquake of 2001 and the Sierra Leone civil war, concludes that:

• Effective disaster relief takes years rather than weeks
• Children and their families should be involved in decisions about how their community is rebuilt
• Rebuilding a community involves more than rebuilding homes, schools and hospitals, and must address the repair of children’s emotional wellbeing
• Rebuilding a community can provide the opportunity to provide homes and other infrastructure that are better designed than the old ones that were destroyed
• Education is an essential part of the recovery process

It is estimated that every year the lives of more than 70 million children are severely disrupted by disaster or armed conflict.  Millions of children are injured, made homeless, lose loved-ones, witness or experience violence and suffer psychological traumas.  Plan says that if these children are to recover and grow up to reach their full potential, aid organisations must recognise that:

• Children have vital long-term needs beyond the need to survive, and that
• Children and their carers are the best people to articulate what these needs are and how they should be met.

Plan therefore calls on all parties involved in disaster relief and mitigation, and particularly the United Nations and member governments to:

• Safeguard all the rights of children throughout all types of disasters;
• Take account of the special needs and vulnerabilities of children, and also of their special capacities to be independent strong survivors capable of producing useful knowledge and actively contributing to disaster relief, recovery and preparedness efforts; and
• Adopt effective mechanisms to monitor and ensure the well-being of children in disasters.

Watch Plan's work around Hurricane Mitch in our Video News Release