With long-established existing facilities and infrastructure in areas hardest hit by the tsunami, SOS Children's Villages (SOS) is mounting an unprecedented long-term relief campaign which will follow the emergency assistance which the organization has been supplying since the tsunami first hit on December 26, 2004. SOS Children's Villages Canada will expand its current fundraising operations to help fund the additional programs and projects which the international child welfare organization is putting into operation. SOS-Kinderdorf International estimates that the cost of these new initiatives will total over $16 million Canadian.
The need is urgent and unparalleled. UNICEF calculates that as many as one third of the estimated 150,000 victims of the disaster were under the age of 16 with up to 50,000 children left without parents.
"We've been in some of these countries for over 35 years," explained SOS Canada National Director Boyd McBride. "This is why we were one of the earliest organizations to get emergency aid to many of the affected areas," he continued. In fact, in Sri Lanka, SOS was one of the first aid groups to enter several areas controlled the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
SOS has set up 13 Child Relief Centres in the Indian towns of Nagapattinam, Kanyakumari and Cuddalore providing some 5,600 children with humanitarian aid. Three centres have been created in Sri Lanka. In the worst hit areas of eastern Sri Lanka, thousands of children and their families continue to receive shelter, food, clean water and medical supplies through the SOS Social Centre in Morakkatanchenai near Batticaloa. The Centre is also functioning as a coordination centre for aid distribution to other coastal regions in the country.
Due to the inaccessibility of the hard-hit northwest coast of Sumatra, SOS relief effort in Indonesia is still linked to aiding those agencies that are able to the get to the area. In Thailand, SOS is accepting orphaned children in its three SOS Children's Villages.
Relief operations now take on a long-term strategy with two far-reaching aid programs and an expansion of the SOS Children's Villages operations in the affected countries.
FIND THE FAMILY
SOS is taking measures to provide up to 10,000 children who have lost or been separated from their parents with shelter, food, clothing and other daily needs, while actively working with other aid organizations and governments to reunite these children with their families.
REBUILDING LIVES
In the upcoming weeks, SOS will assume responsibility for up to 1,000 families in South-India and Sri Lanka, helping to restore their livelihoods.
SOS CHILDREN'S VILLAGE
Plans are already underway to build a new SOS Children's Village in Sri Lanka. In India, the seven existing Children's Villages in the southern part of the country will provide the base for expanding housing for children and families. Based on the information available at this time, SOS also expects to build an additional Village in Indonesia.
NO PLAN IS EASY
With death tolls still mounting, and the immense physical challenges presented by the devastation left by the tsunami, SOS organizers predict that relief efforts will have their rough spots. "We know that this is a huge task which we are undertaking," commented Mr. McBride. "We are depending on the generosity of our donors, the exceptional expertise of our SOS people in the field, and the firm commitment of SOS agencies throughout the world to get this job done," he continued.
Help the Tsunami Children
United Nations estimates place the death toll in South Asia at more than 150,000, with numbers rising daily. The agency warns that this number could double over the following weeks unless adequate measures are taken to stem the tide of disease and destruction. Your donation NOW will go directly to SOS Children's Villages relief work in India and Sri Lanka and Indonesia