Why one girl refuses to remember
- added July 1, 2008
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- goldenways
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Nway pretends that it never happened. The storm didn't come. The wind didn't tear her home to pieces. The cyclone didn't sweep her mother and father away.
In those brief moments, when she tunes out the questions, the 7-year-girl from Myanmar can step back in time -- before May's Cyclone Nargis took everything away.
That's the girl aid workers from World Vision International, a Christian humanitarian group, found when they met Nway in her demolished village a month after the cyclone.
"When she was asked about the cyclone, she turned away and said she didn't remember anything about it, and left," says Ashley Clements, a World Vision worker who met Nway.
International relief groups know how to rebuild devastated countries like Myanmar. But how do they rebuild the lives of children like Nway? That's the challenge faced by groups trying to help child survivors of natural and manmade disasters.
Aid workers who deal with these children say the experience can drain their souls. They try to comfort children in Darfur, Sudan, who have seen their mothers raped; children in China who have seen their parents buried under rubble; children in Louisiana who watched their homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
No matter where they encounter these children, these aid workers face the same question: How can a child remain a child after experiencing a tragedy?
Rose Kimeu, a disaster response specialist for World Vision in African and Latin America, says many children don't know how.
"They don't laugh. They don't smile," Kimeu says. "They have this look in their eyes that's very sad... It's something that breaks my heart over and over."
---**Go to the link to read the full story, the next section is called "How they become a child again"
In those brief moments, when she tunes out the questions, the 7-year-girl from Myanmar can step back in time -- before May's Cyclone Nargis took everything away.
That's the girl aid workers from World Vision International, a Christian humanitarian group, found when they met Nway in her demolished village a month after the cyclone.
"When she was asked about the cyclone, she turned away and said she didn't remember anything about it, and left," says Ashley Clements, a World Vision worker who met Nway.
International relief groups know how to rebuild devastated countries like Myanmar. But how do they rebuild the lives of children like Nway? That's the challenge faced by groups trying to help child survivors of natural and manmade disasters.
Aid workers who deal with these children say the experience can drain their souls. They try to comfort children in Darfur, Sudan, who have seen their mothers raped; children in China who have seen their parents buried under rubble; children in Louisiana who watched their homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
No matter where they encounter these children, these aid workers face the same question: How can a child remain a child after experiencing a tragedy?
Rose Kimeu, a disaster response specialist for World Vision in African and Latin America, says many children don't know how.
"They don't laugh. They don't smile," Kimeu says. "They have this look in their eyes that's very sad... It's something that breaks my heart over and over."
---**Go to the link to read the full story, the next section is called "How they become a child again"
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- goldenways
- 3 months ago
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