Bringing all the children back to school and providing adult employment are two main long-term approaches.
ISLAMABAD: This is with reference to the article, “Psychotherapy: Traumatised children in flood-hit areas show progress” published in your newspaper on May 8. The suffering experienced by children in flood-hit areas from post-traumatic problems is a rather serious issue.
These children have seen people die and people rush to save their lives. Valuable work of NGOs’ has also been observed in the form of rehabilitation efforts. However, short-term assistance will not help. These children do not only suffer because of their experiences but also from the problems which their care givers face after the traumatic event.
For example, if a mother is depressed after such a disaster, she might be unable to take care of the needs of her child; consequently the child will suffer. Therefore, bringing all the children back to school and providing adult employment are two main long-term approaches that could help provide uplift to these communities.
And that is where the real challenge lies for this government. Dropping material assistance from helicopters as was done right after the floods was only a short-term measure and one only hopes that a long-term strategy will be adopted.
Gulnaz Zahid
Published in The Express Tribune, May 12th, 2011.
