Helping Katrina-affected Children Recover
When Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, its destruction was unprecedented. Save the Children began responding within days, focusing on children's well-being and quality of life and economic concerns. In the two and a half years that followed, Save the Children served over 190,000 Katrina-affected children and caregivers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, working with families, communities, schools and local organizations.
In 2008, we will focus on providing structured play activities to help children and caregivers build coping skills and a sense of safety and normalcy.
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| Children in the I-59 temporary housing site in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, participate in a Hurricane Preparedness Workshop led by Save the Children staff. |
Recovery and Resilience-building Programs
Save the Children continues to offer a menu of disaster recovery and resilience-building programs in the Gulf Coast designed to help children and their caregivers build coping skills and recover from their experiences with Hurricane Katrina. These workshops, also known as psychosocial programs, offer structured play, expressive and art activities geared toward different age groups and have touched the lives of over 100,000 children and caregivers in total.
Restoring Child Care and Out-of-school Programs
Katrina destroyed child care facilities along the Gulf Coast, affecting not only children but also working parents who needed child care in order to return to their jobs and support their region's economic recovery. After-school and summer programs also struggled in the storm's aftermath, making it difficult for children to find safe, enriching environments where they could spend their out-of-school hours. Save the Children worked with partners partners to restore 37 damaged or destroyed child care centers in Mississippi and provided furniture, materials and small grants to 17 child care centers struggling to reopen or stay open in the New Orleans area. We also supported summer, after-school and holiday break-time programs in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and worked with volunteers to build four playgrounds. Through these initiatives, Save the Children served over 27,000 children.
Building Community in Temporary Housing
Through our Safe and Protective Communities Project, Save the Children worked in 10 temporary housing sites in Louisiana to help bring residents together, establish community spaces and create safer environments for children. As part of the project, Save the Children helped residents of these temporary trailer parks identify quality of life issues in their communities, advocate, and connect with local service organizations and officials. Save the Children was active in sites in Calcasieu, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. James, St. Tammany, and Tangipahoa Parishes and worked in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Learn more about Save the Children's U.S. Emergency programs
