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Save the Children Partners with American Red Cross to Serve Children Forced From Their Homes by Hurricane Gustav
To assist thousands of children forced from their homes as a result of Hurricane Gustav, Save the Children is partnering with the American Red Cross to create safe areas for children in evacuation centers in Louisiana and Mississippi and provide special materials enabling displaced children to play, participate in structured activities and interact with other children in a secure environment.
The special assistance to children is the result of a Save the Children/American Red Cross partnership, signed a year ago, that has placed some 450 "Safe Space" kits in disaster-prone areas nationwide, ensuring that emergency shelters have access to Safe Space materials as soon as a disaster strikes. Nearly 100 kits were pre-positioned in the Gulf Coast region prior to Hurricane Gustav.
Safe Space kits contain materials that can be used to establish a safe space for children within a shelter. These pre-packaged kits contain equipment to mark off a special area for children, activity supplies (such as art materials, books, games and toys), and other materials to assist children and families in a shelter environment. The structured, supervised activities offered in Safe Spaces are designed to strengthen children's resilience and help them begin to work through their emotions following a disaster.
"Emergency shelters place children and their families in cramped quarters, in the midst of strangers, and lack toys, safe places to play and structured activities for children," said Mark Shriver, Vice President and Managing Director of Save the Children's U.S. Programs. "Through this partnership, children in evacuation shelters will be allowed to play, learn, socialize and express themselves under the supervision of a caring adult, giving them a sense of normalcy which can help them recover from the experience of weathering a disaster."
