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Rita strikes Gulf Coast - Save the Children prepares to respond
Westport, CT (September 24, 2005) – Save the Children is preparing to expand its emergency response efforts--currently focused on helping thousands of children forced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi--to other areas along the Louisiana and Texas Gulf Coast now suffering the fury of Hurricane Rita.
“We are preparing to expand the work we are doing with displaced children in Louisiana and Mississippi to other areas where children may be forced from their homes and require our assistance to overcome this second terrible storm,” said Save the Children President and CEO Charles MacCormack.
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| Carl Triplehorn, Emergency Education Specialist in Baton Rouge, LA |
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 their 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
