UNICEF's field office chief in Vanuatu says children displaced by the volcanic eruption on Ambae are in urgent need of support.
Andrew Parker says children are one of the groups most at risk during disasters.
He says more than 3000 school aged children will need to be re-enrolled in primary and secondary schools on Maewo, Pentecost and Santo.
Mr Parker says the 1000 secondary students were given priority by government with some coming to end of year exams and have been housed in boarding schools in neighbouring islands.
He says the 2000 younger primary students are to be absorbed by schools in and around the evacuation centres.
However he told Dominic Godfrey many of these schools are being used to house the displaced.
Vanuatu Red Cross workers load relief supplies brought in on a NZAF Hercules. Much needed tarpaulins, water containers and health and sanitation kits were being stored until further notice was given from the NDMO
Photo: RNZI / Koroi Hawkins
Transcript
ANDREW PARKER: The government's making strenuous efforts to identify locations for the interim period. I understand that the prime minister visited the locations yesterday and certainly made noise of reviewing the situation on advice of the scientists who appear to say now that things are calming on the island. There is no indication as yet as to how this will translate into timing for a return but certainly there is consolidation from 51 sites planned down to four or five sites in Luganville. There was initially discussion of compulsory procurement of land to resettle people on. That seems to have been superseded by a plan for four or five structured temporary evacuation centres which suggests a more interim solution than a long term solution.
DOMINIC GODFREY: So these children at risk, what is the immediate need from a UNICEF perspective in terms of mitigating that trauma, those needs of the children?
ANDREW PARKER: Generally globally UNICEF would advocate returning children into a safe protective environment as soon as possible. That's referred to as different things for different ages. Child friendly spaces are generally advocated for and supported in displaced camps for the younger groups and reactivation or functionality of schools is a clear way of bringing children back into a protective environment in which normalcy is returned. Not only is this important to children themselves, it's critical to children, but it's also important to the wider community for children to be children and able to act as children again.
DOMINIC GODFREY: Indeed. But the immediate needs of clothing, shelter, food and water have been met?
ANDREW PARKER: The government is certainly leading a fairly comprehensive and inter-sectoral response in this regard. But in amongst all of that there is certainly a concern around gender, gender sensitivity, gender-based violence and these things tend to emerge in situations of disruption and stress so we're certainly watching that with the government and other agencies.
DOMINIC GODFREY: So within this pressure cooker environment that you're talking about here, another pressure that can add to this is the separation of families from one another. How has this been during the evacuation?
ANDREW PARKER: I'm not equipped to answer that to be honest. I haven't heard of significant concerns in this regard. It's certainly something that we're looking at at the moment in terms of the children, the potential separation of children from families. However the government was very very clear right from the start of the evacuation process that they would try to keep whole communities together let alone whole families together so one would hope that that risk has been mitigated to some extent. Having said that, the risk still remains and we'd certainly be continuing to work with the Ministry of Justice and the Child Desk in order to determine how that is panning out in reality.
To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following:
See terms of use.
