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Hurricane Rita Puts More Gulf Coast Children At Risk
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| Carl Triplehorn, Emergency Education Specialist in Baton Rouge, LA |
“Thousands of additional children and their families in small rural communities across southern Louisiana have lost everything—their homes, their schools, their livlihoods--as a result of another terrible hurricane that has struck the Gulf Coast,” said Charles MacCormack, President and CEO of Save the Children. “We are preparing to expand our work to assist children and families who have been uprooted and forced to leave their communities as a result of Hurricane Rita.”
Save the Children’s emergency response team in Louisiana, based in Baton Rouge, has provided direct assistance to thousands of children as it works with local partners and state officials in meeting the immediate needs of displaced children.
Besides distributing educational and recreational materials to teachers, students and administrators in East Baton Rouge schools, Save the Children also has begun training teachers throughout the region on methods to help displaced children recover, many of whom have lost everything.
And Save the Children is providing expertise and assistance to organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club of Baton Rouge and the city’s Big Buddy Partners program which are operating supervised safe areas for children to play in the city’s largest shelter at the Baton Rouge River Center.
A second response team has set up operations in Jackson, Mississippi, and along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, where tens of thousands of additional displaced families are seeking assistance. The agency again is working closely with local officials to meet children’s needs.
"Our special focus is on helping displaced children," said MacCormack. "We are establishing programs to bring some normalcy into children’s lives. We are working in the schools and shelters with children who were uprooted, providing specially tailored activities to help children heal emotionally. We are also working with state education officials to ensure teachers have training, curricula and other resources to help thousands of displaced children adjust to the upheaval they have experienced.”
Save the Children is building upon decades of experience helping children in need in the United States and around the world.
“We know from our work with tsunami victims in Asia – and in dozens of other disaster zones – how to help communities give children back the sense of routine and stability they have lost,” said MacCormack. “In addition, we have a long history of helping children in the United States to overcome severe poverty through literacy programs during in-school and out-of-school time. Children who have lost their homes, family members, pets, schools and friends because of Rita will need this kind of help.”
Donate to the Gulf Coast Hurricanes Recovery Fund for Children
