11/09/2007 - SOS Children's Villages is working with Caritas, Care Peru and Médecins Sans Frontières to provide aid for more than 1,400 children in the areas of southern Peru that were hit by the recent earthquake.
SOS Children's Villages is committed to helping families in four locations that were affected by the serious earthquake on 15 August. The most important aspect is to provide the essentials that are needed on a daily basis. SOS Children's Villages is therefore mainly concentrating on ensuring that children receive a meal every day. Family committees have since formed in Pisco, Chincha, Cañete and Ica. The committees, which are functioning well, are organising more support with help from SOS Children's Villages.
SOS Children's Villages distributes breakfast to around 1,425 children a day. In Las Palmeras, Santa Cruz and Nueva Juventud (in Pisco province), Caritas is also providing children with bread to eat with their breakfast. The breakfast that children in Guadalupe (in Ica province) are being given by SOS Children's Villages each day is also being complemented by bread from Caritas. The family committees in Ica have also been able to build sanitation facilities and three kitchens with help from Médecins Sans Frontières and are given advice on health and hygiene matters.
In Cañete, where SOS Children's Villages is providing 330 children with breakfast each day, Care Peru is giving the family committees water purification tablets and instructions as to how to purify water. Aid continues for the children in Sunampe (Chincha province), where SOS Children's Villages is focusing on children under the age of five.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
