SOS Children: Action Plan Sri Lanka
21/02/2005
The immediate goal is to help up to 1000 families to rebuild their lives and reunite children with their families. The four programmes will be based on the existing SOS Children's Villages projects at Galle and Piliyandala in the south and Battticaloa in the east of Sri Lanka - the areas most affected by the tsunami.
1. Family support centres - to help up to 2000 children and their families to rebuild their lives by providing day care centres at existing refugee camps. These will give children and their families food and trauma counselling.
This programme is planned to run for up to five months.
Estimated cost: £55,000 / £27.50 per child
2. Family rebuilding programme - identify up to 600 families and give them the practical and financial support they need to rebuild their lives. • provide temporary shelter, basic household equipment and food.
Estimated cost: £100,000 / £166.67 per family
• help to set up self-help groups
• provide equipment for sustainable livelihoods - boats, fishing nets Estimated cost: £100,000 / £166.67 per family
• help to rebuild houses, working with provincial and local governments.
Estimated cost: £190,000 / £316.67 per family
• help to develop community projects - kindergarten, school, medical centre - building, equipping, training staff and handing over to the community
Estimated cost, construction and running costs for three years: £570,000 £316.67 per family per year.
3. Family support programme - identify up to 100 single parent families whose children are in danger of being abandoned. The programme, which will run for up to three years, will help with food, medicine, education, skills training, training in health and nutrition.
Estimated cost: £80,000 / £266.67 per family per year
4. Additional support - volunteers from the SOS Children's Villages projects, staff and young people will work with local organisations to support the local communities
• working with Ruhuna University, Galle to deliver medical support to more than 40 refugee camps in the vicinity of Galle
• distribute food
• help re-establish essential services
SOS Children's Villages Sri Lanka currently has projects in seven locations - five villages with 64 family houses, five kindergartens, a school, three training centres and six medical and social centres. A decision will be made in April 2005 if there is a need to establish a new SOS Children's Village to provide family care for orphaned and abandoned children.