As rivers of mud and boulders swept down to bury villages in the devastating landslides in Wayanad last year, a 17-year-old was among those who lost everything they held dear. The disaster snuffed out the lives of both his parents. He was left without a house or possessions that could help him tide over the adversity. Traumatised and still coming to terms with his changed reality, the adolescent and his older sibling had to move to a relief camp.
An eight-year-old boy who lost his father to the landslides at the end of July last year was not well enough to go to school even two months after the tragedy, though his teachers were ready to support him through bridging classes or any other way possible.
As survivors of the tragedy struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives, children who suffered personal trauma remain the most vulnerable among them. Six children of different ages lost both parents on that horrific night and 10 lost either parent. There are nine children whose parents saw that dark night through but were left incapacitated to continue with their livelihood.
The Women and Child Development (WCD) department, in association with UNICEF, has now come up with a comprehensive post-disaster child protection model to support the rehabilitation of each of these young survivors, in addition to what has been already done by the government. This will be supported of the Wayanad district administration and corporate social responsibility initiatives.
Costed care plan
The individual care/rehabilitation scheme is novel because it adopts a multidimensional approach, including a costed care plan, to map the children’s requirements.
Field visits, discussions
Anchored by the Department of Social Work of the Rajagiri College of Social Sciences and its extension wing called Rajagiri outREACH, the individual costed care plan (ICCP) report was prepared after multiple visits to the disaster-hit areas and interactions with the children and government agencies involved in supporting them.
The ICCPs were developed in an empirical manner, involving interviews, thematic analysis, and secondary data review, say head of the Rajagiri Department of Social Work Kiran Thampi and associate professor Reena Merin Cherian who led the study on behalf the WCD department.
The plans project economic expenditure from a child’s age when data was collected post-landslides up to the age of 21, using consumer price index (including inflation) and age-appropriate developmental indicators, to assess their needs during that period.
Four domains
Each plan is personalised, participatory, and costed across four domains: family and care-giving (assessing household composition, care arrangements, and housing needs); physical and mental health (including trauma, injury, chronic illness, and psychological support); education (continuity of schooling, learning gaps, special education needs, and aspirations); and economic rehabilitation (addressing livelihood loss, financial strain, and access to entitlement).
For instance, the adolescent who lost both parents wanted to be trained in photography and videography so that he could set up his own studio, while the mother of the child who lost his father had sought a laptop with internet connection for him to address learning gaps. The cost involved in setting up the studio or in purchase of laptop has been included in the projections.
The report advocates institutionalising ICCPs in disaster response systems to ensure child protection and rehabilitation. It has been submitted to the WCD and UNICEF and accepted.