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IOM begins repatriation of earthquake refugees today

* Quake children get school packages

ISLAMABAD: IOM will coordinate with the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), and provide free transport to those who wish to return to their villages and towns in the earthquake affected areas from Monday.

IOM will initially supply over 150 trucks and jeeps, and coordinators say the programme will be expanded as the return process picks up speed. “It’s a huge task. Each family will need several trucks to take their tents and what remains of their personal belongings,” said IOM Regional Representative Hassan Adbel Moneim Mustafa.

“It will take months to finish, but we hope that an informed return process will encourage more people to return faster and help them restart their lives.”

In order to facilitate safe returns, IOM will support the government and other partners in activities such as information campaigns, “go-and-see” visits, medical screening, transportation and reintegration projects. These activities will take place in villages and towns as well as on the roads and highways.

Approximately 3.5 million people have been affected by the earthquake that struck the northern areas of Pakistan and India on October 8, 2005, with over 73,000 people losing their lives. Available statistics indicate that over 297,000 displaced persons are currently living in camps in NWFP and other areas of Pakistan.

Vulnerable groups will be given special attention. Such groups will be assisted with free transportation as well as initial support to rebuild their lives. It is estimated that IOM will initially assist 40,000 organised returns from April 1 until October 31, 2006. In addition there is a large number of unregistered internally displaced people (IDP), approximately 120,000 people, especially in camps of less than fifty tents, who will need similar assistance.

The focus of the government of Pakistan and the humanitarian community has shifted to helping IDPs return home and to their normal lives safely, with dignity, voluntarily and with an informed choice.

Meanwhile, children in quake-hit villages of Balakot had a rare moment of joy when they received books, uniforms, bags and other school material from the Academy for Educational Development (AED).

AED, an international non-profit organisation, has provided educational assistance for remote areas in the quake zone. A team from the AED office in Islamabad travelled to Balakot and distributed educational supplies to children in two schools. The aid packages included uniforms for boys and girls, notebooks, storybooks, teaching kits for primary classes, stationary, furniture, floor mats, white boards, water flasks and signboards. Earlier this month, AED distributed similar articles among school students at three schools in Bagh in Azad Kashmir. Communities in Bagh and Balakot as well as Education Department officials in these areas appreciated AED’s efforts in reaching remote schools and distributing school supplies among students. AED plans to hold workshops in Bagh and Balakot at the selected schools for teachers in trauma counselling, use of low and no cost material, multi-grade teaching and literature therapy through joyful reading and storytelling to bring the traumatised children back into the mainstream.

AED’s alumni who have received one semester of teacher training in three US universities will impart this training at selected schools. Teachers’ training and motivation is imperative, as they too have been victims of the earthquake. “We hope that what we are doing will contribute in reviving education in the areas battered by the October 8 earthquake,” said AED Country Director Iqbal Jatoi. He said that his office conducted a survey for the needs of children before arranging the supplies. “Interest in schooling was very low a month after the earthquake as major concerns then were survival, proper shelter and food. But the situation has improved now and children are keen to restart their schooling and rebuild their lives,” Jatoi said. AED is operating in about 50 countries to support educational and other developmental activities.

In Pakistan, AED is also implementing Pakistan Teacher Education and Professional Development Programme funded by US Agency for International Development and have so far trained 172 teachers’ trainers in mathematics, science and english in three US universities. Currently, AED is training about 60 teachers’ trainers all over the country including the quake-hit districts. An AED official who was present during the distribution of school supplies at Balakot narrated how excited six-year-old Mohammad Usman felt while receiving the reading material at his village near Balakot.

“I will read all the books in a single day,” Usman told her. The boy’s father said more NGOs should come to the area to spur children’s interest in education and help rebuild facilities destroyed in the earthquake. AED officials said that the supplies including storybooks would inculcate in children the desire to go back to school. Agencies

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