Going back to school after a natural disaster

Preparing children for the new school year is never an easy task, even at normal times. As a parent of three, I know this first hand. It is next to impossible in countries where half of the working age population is unemployed and, as it happened, where thousands of people witnessed destruction of their homes, agricultural land and their only sources of income caused by severe floods and landslides.

Damage the floods made to a school in Maglaj.

We are now six weeks to beginning of the new school year. The recovery from torrential rains that hit Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Serbia in May causing flooding of rivers and thousands of landslides is painfully slow.

Our Emergency Team is working in the field, assessing the situation and giving us essential inputs where to direct our aid, but the damage is overwhelming and we are worried that upcoming cold autumn and winter months will bring numerous problems – inadequate housing, living expenses growing rapidly, and one that we will face fairly soon – unpreparedness for the new school year.

We have warned repeatedly in the past weeks that many schools are still unusable and it is still unknown if those schools will be ready for successful beginning of the new school year. As Save the Children we are doing our best to contribute to the rehabilitation and recovery of several schools that were damaged in floods and landslides all over BiH. There are some other organisations doing the same, but it is not enough, especially in this short period of time we have left until September.

Reconstruction of a classroom in a school in Olovo.

 

At the same time, thousands of families are struggling with existential issues and are essentially helpless and unable to stretch to anything above the minimum family needs. New textbooks, school supplies and clothing are becoming luxury to many, when food on the table and roof over the head is a priority, often unreachable.

We should not forget that re-establishing education process after natural and other disasters, for the psychosocial recovery of the youngest is of key importance. In our Child Friendly Spaces in BiH and Serbia we listened to children talking about their experiences – watching their homes being filled with water, running to safety, living in improvised shelters and we are partnering up with both international and local organisations to help children from affected areas to get back the feeling of 'normalcy'. We wouldn’t want to see, in addition, their education suffering due to emergency circumstances.

We will try to prevent this and make the lives of the students affected by floods easier by providing them with necessary school supplies, thus helping the families in need to get the kids ready for school.

And last but not the least, we are also calling on other donors and institutions to take part in ensuring conditions for the timely beginning of the new school year, in dry and renovated schools, with students having all they need to learn.

Growing up fast in time of crisis

“When the water withdrew we had to throw away everything. We have nothing now.” – These are the painful words we heard from 14 year old David from Bijeljina who, like many others this May, had to flee his home because of severe floods that hit Bosnia and Hercegovina (BiH) and Serbia.

Our team visited Bijeljina on several occasions since the floods. We first distributed lifesaving equipment there, followed by personal hygiene kits, cleaning items and disinfection products.  Now we are about to open a Child Friendly Space in this town – a space where children can continue to learn, develop and overcome traumas caused by this natural disaster.

The flood reached the outskirts of Bijeljina on May 16^th when 6000 persons had to be evacuated. Water has now withdrawn from the town and its surroundings, but this year’s crops are now ruined in this mostly agricultural area. A lot of cattle also died in the chaos of flooding, all off this strongly affecting the Roma population because they normally work in the fields during the summer.

David’s family returned to their destroyed home after the water wiredrew. He lives with his parents and siblings Armanda (2), Leonardo (4), Maikel (13), Jasmin (16) and Jasmina (19).

“The water came in from the ground and totally destroyed our floor”, David’s father tells us. “We had to move everything outside.” He is now trying to dry the wooden floor by placing it up against the wall and shows us the cracks in the fundament. We have provided this family with humanitarian aid after the flood.

At the end of the visit we ask David how he will spend the rest of the summer and his words are painfully grown up’s: “I work with my father. We collect material in the streets, mostly iron. It is easy to find things these days. I got no time for school or play.”

And yet, in midst of this entire crisis, we also found exemplary work. We saw it in our young Roma leaders in Bijeljina, those gathered around Save the Children’s regional Leaders - Young Roma in Action (LYRA) Project. They are volunteering in our partner organization Otaharin, distributing humanitarian aid and helping their fellow citizens, while at the same time continuing to work on pressing issues in their communities.

“During the flood we went to the Roma settlements to help out with the evacuation. Later on we visited families who had lost their homes to find out what their needs were. From there we could start the distribution of humanitarian aid like food and diapers,”  Almir (22), a Roma youth leader from Bijeljina told us.

LYRA Project aims to educate Roma youth to be change makers in their local environment and the program is showing great results. It is implemented in BiH, Albania and Kosovo. In BiH you find it in five cities: Mostar, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Bijeljina and Tuzla.

Save the Children will continue to work in Bijeljina through both, LYRA Project and the Child Friendly Space, doing our best to reach as many children and families that need assistance as possible.

Cleaning-up after the floods

Just a week ago this was a ghost town. Homes abandoned, classrooms empty, streets deserted. 

 

In the immediate aftermath of the floods, 24,000 people were evacuated from Obrenovac, over two-thirds of its entire population. 

 

A similar proportion of the town lay submerged - in some neighbourhoods waves lapped against second story windows.

A resident of Obrenovac has to use a ladder from a boat to access his flooded home

But now, six weeks since the floods hit, the waters have mostly receded and the town is showing signs of returning to normal.

Cafes and grocery stores have begun to reopen. While the queue of cars to enter the town is no longer empty, snaking for kilometres as more and more families return to survey the damage.

Hundreds of ruined cars line the town’s streets; doors, windows and bonnets open in the hope that when dry they will work again.

Shop-owners strip their storefronts and once valuable merchandise sits in sodden-heaps on the pavement waiting to be collected and disposed of.

For most people the cost has proved devastating. The worse affected simply have no safe home to return to, while the more fortunate wrestle with having lost their worldly possessions or businesses.

Many homes are still without electricity and basement floors remain flooded with sewage-contaminated and stagnant water – the risk of disease an all too real reality.

Clean-up efforts

In response, last week we distributed 250 clean-up kits so that those returning home have the right equipment and protective clothing to do so safely. Another 250 have gone to community volunteers who are working tirelessly to clean public areas such as streets, schools and kindergartens.

 

Save the Children Clean-up kits, consisting of protective boots, gloves, facemasks and shovels, have helped almost 5,000 people clean their homes

We have also given generators, water pumps and dehumidifiers to the local government so that those families in need can borrow them and make their homes habitable again.

Children in distress

The affects of the floods have also been extremely distressing for the children in affected areas.  Children have told us of how they watched helplessly as their homes filled with water, how they had to run in the dead of night to higher ground or wait for hours on second-floor balconies for rescue.

 

“It was late, we were all sleeping when I woke up and realised there was water in the house. I woke everyone up and we tried to stop it coming in. But it didn’t work so we ran. We couldn’t take anything. Just the clothes we were wearing to sleep in. It was frightening.” - Miladinka, 11 years old

Likewise many parents explain that since the disaster their children have become more introverted and that now often their children become physically upset whenever it starts to rain.

 

With schools and kindergartens now closed for rehabilitation, and with parents needing time and space to repair their homes and get their livelihoods back on track it is crucial that the needs of children are not forgotten.

This is why Save the Children, along with its partner organisations in Serbia, are about to initiate Child Friendly Spaces in both Obrenovac and rural areas to ensure that children affected by this crisis have a safe and nurturing space to play, learn, receive psychosocial support and most importantly be children again.

 

 

Landslides jeopardizing homes in rural Serbia

Our teams travelled to some of the more remote areas affected by devastating flooding in Serbia last week to find out what the current situation is for these communities and how Save the Children might be able to help the recovery process in the coming months.

In Loznica the Deputy Mayor told how they are now registering new and often serious landslides on a daily basis.  To date there have already been over 300 landslides in this municipality alone and between 20 and 30 homes have been completely destroyed.

 

A landslide outside Bajina Basta covers half the main road

A similar story is playing out in Bajina Basta where, in a briefing with our team, the Mayor highlighted how the landslides are not just destroying people’s homes (19 so far) but also infrastructure vital to rural communities everyday lives like country roads and bridges.

Many families who work the land in these regions have found themselves completely cut-off from main towns as roads have been ripped apart by shifting ground or buried by the debris from the landslides. One local talking to our team described it as if the roads had been literally picked up and wrung like a towel.

What was evident was that over 3 weeks since the flooding began many rural communities are still unable to access basic services located in main towns, or even their own fields and outhouses, often just hundreds of metres away.

A huge operation is now needed to ensure that communities hitherto cut-off are provided with the assistance they need so that they can try and get their lives back on track.

But this is a huge job. In Loznica alone the authorities estimate that the damage to both infrastructure and agriculture in the municipality will total over €6 million; to put this into perspective this is the municipality’s entire annual budget for 2014.

 


A home lies abandoned after a landslide swept away its foundations

However, it is not just the physical damage of the landslides that is having a major impact on those affected. Many have now seen everything they owned destroyed.  As one mother stated to our team: “We’ve lived here for over 15 years. This was our home. The thought of not being able to come back is like one of the family dying.”

When crisis meets every day-life

The last couple of weeks we have met people in shock and despair throughout the affected areas in Serbia and Bosnia. We have been in shock and despair ourselves.

But, at the same time, we have met a collective mentality in people that has given so much back to us. People have teamed up and cleaned neighborhoods, helped each other out, and volunteered in collective centers. In state of emergency, we have proved ourselves to be a strong group.

Now, water is withdrawing and daily life is slowly returning. For the weeks and months to come we will find ourselves somewhere in between crisis and the life we are used to. This might not be as life threatening as fighting the force of nature, but it will definitely be challenging. So many people meet this state without a home to return to.

Children in the collective centre in Zenica engaged in activities organized by Save the Children
PHOTO: Hanne Bjugstad

We have to find out how we most efficiently can help those who lost everything. We need to make sure that the damages on land, businesses and infrastructure are repaired as soon as possible so we are able to get on. And we have to take good care of our children, so they can get on.

Natural disasters cause big traumas for lots of reasons, but maybe mostly because we are reminded of how small we are compared to nature. This can be very traumatizing to a child. How do you cope when you realize that your parents aren’t the leaders of the universe? 

The hug - children engaged in activities organized by Save the Children
PHOTO: Hanne Bjugstad

Save the Children are now setting up Child Friendly Spaces in affected areas of Bosnia and Serbia. Here we will reach out to children with activities and a space to play and learn. Here they will get a break from the unusual surroundings they now have to deal with. We will also provide psychological support to release the tension and trauma our kids now face. We have already started with activities in the collective center in Zenica, and we are happy to see that even in state of emergency; children are still children. They light up in playful activities with each other and forget the world around them.

Parts of Bosnia are still under water 2 weeks after the floods began

Our teams have visited some of the areas of Bosnia which are still under the water two weeks after the flooding began. My colleagues had to put on rubber boots and protect themselves with respiratory masks to see the extent of damage that the floods caused in the Northern part of the country. They visited Orasje and Brcko. Alongside with them was Hanne Bjugstad, a colleague from Save the Children Norway who came to the office to help us out with some important aspects of our emergency response. Hanne made some compelling images from the flooded areas and talked to the people directly affected by the floods. A day before yesterday she was in Zenica, talking to people who fled from their homes as they collapsed due to landslides. “I meet some of the people who have literally had their lives flushed down a river drain in only a few weeks and are now living in a military base in Zenica, just outside of Sarajevo. From here I can see for myself that even small donations made from people in the village I’m from in Norway, plays an important role in an international well-functioning system,” says Hanne. 

Hanne Bjugstad in the school yard in Tosila, Bosnia

Hanne in the boys' locker room in the school in Tosila - the room filled with sewage water spilling out due to the flood.

 

“The last couple of days we have traveled past villages affected by over 150 landslides alone, and seen areas where no one can tell for sure where the landmines are located anymore. When I am done with this assignment, I can go back to my normal job in Oslo. The sweet escape of every trip we Norwegians take outside our own comfort zone. My colleagues in Bosnia are worried about the future. Will this change everything? What happens when the media focus on something else and there is no more money coming in?” Hanne wonders.

The sports hall in Brcko now serves as the collective centre/shelter for people whose houses are flooded. PHOTO: Hanne Bjugstad

Delivery of humanitarian aid materials has started

During the past weekend, our teams were assisting in packing and in the delivery of humanitarian aid to the communities most affected by the floods, or those where many displaced people have found their shelter. 200 hygienic packs with a week supply of hygienic means for a family were distributed over the weekend to Zenica, Bijeljina, Tuzla and Banja Luka. 120 baby packs including diapers and baby wipes along with baby food were delivered to the same locations.Another 50 hygienic and 30 baby packs will be distributed to Doboj in the coming days. Our hard working colleagues from partner NGOs, alongside with volunteers distributed the delivered aid to the families in need. Save the Children’s staff was also on the spot to talk to the affected families and to children and to help with the distribution. Our colleague Ljiljana Sinickovic, education specialist says “Every day is Monday since the flooding started. I work around the clock, but I still got energy. I go here and visit these people who lost everything, and I feel like my job is making a difference. I feel bad going home to my clean sheets, knowing that there are so many still here, not owning anything.”

Preparation of hygiene kits for distribution to the families in need in Bosnia

Distribution of cleaning equipment and tools to schools in Zenica-Doboj Canton

Simultaneously, a contingency of cleaning equipment and tools was distributed to 28 schools in Zenica-Doboj Canton, which were highly affected by the floods. 16,950 girls and boys are educated in these schools on a regular basis. Their education is currently interrupted and it is most likely that they will not be able to return to school in this school year, as the efforts to clean-up and dehumidify the school premises continue. By providing the clean-up and disinfection equipment and means, in Save the Children we hope to speed up the process of recovery, while at the same time we explore new funding opportunities which would enable us to provide school furniture and equipment, so that the 16,950 girls and boys can go back to school in September. What going back to school would mean to the children affected by this natural disaster is best reflected in a quote of Saudina , a 16-year old girl placed in the military camp shelter, whose house was destroyed by a landslide: “I like to attend the activities for children [organized by Save the Children in the camp], because it feels good to have something to do. I would be bored to death if not! It would be even better if the school would start again. That’s all I hope for: To go home and continue with my life.”

Saudina (16) who lost her house to a landslide at a military camp shelter in Zenica/ PHOTO: Hanne Bjugstad