|
|
Indian Council for Child Welfare, Tamil Nadu CHILDREN'S DISASTER RELIEF FUNDIndian Council for Child Welfare, Tamil Nadu is a Non Profit, Non Governmental Organization working in Chennai city and the Districts of Tamil Nadu with disadvantaged children. Each District has District Council for Child Welfare with the Collector as Chairman and Non-official and Official members. It has various programmes in the districts such as crèches for children of working women, Programmes for Child Labour, Prevention of Female Infanticide and Girl Child development programmes etc. (see website: www.iccwtn.org). The Tsunami and earthquake on 26 th December 2004 devastated the coastal villages of Tamil Nadu particularly in the districts of Cuddalore, Nagapattinam , Kanniyakumari and Chennai. Thousands have been left homeless and many have perished. This has made hundreds of children destitute, some with single parent and some orphaned. Families have lost not only their homes and belongings but also their means of livelihood as most of them were fishermen and lost their boats. Indian Council for Child Welfare has set up a CHILDREN'S DISASTER RELIEF FUND to help children affected by the disaster. We are on Phase II of our programme. PHASE IImmediate Relief of clothes, medicines, bedding, cooking vessels and basic needs is being distributed at the fishing villages of Cuddalore District. (We are stopping this as a number of organizations/ Corporate and Government are providing this assistance). PHASE IIThe Children's Relief Fund will be using Rs.1000/- (US $ 22 approx) to buy 2 sets of uniform, school books, bag and other requisites per child to get them back to school. There are 2700 Children attending Government Primary and Elementary Schools in Cuddalore District, approx 1500 attending Private Schools and 1500 attending High Schools. We will immediately help the 2700 children in the 19 Government Primary & Elementary Schools located in the fishing villages. We expect a similar number of children will need help in Nagapattinam District and in Kanyakumari District. We want to do this in the next week and appeal for urgent support . Details of village Government Primary & Elementary Schools can be sent if required. Many of the Schools in the coastal villages have also lost furniture and equipments. So far 19 schools have requested for assistance totaling Rs.8,00,000/- (US Dollars 18,605) Counselling Services for Children and Families: Our visits have shown that there is an urgent need for counselling and support services. We plan to immediately provide this help by placing trained social workers and village level community workers in the area. The costing per District for a year is approx. Rs.7,50,000/- We plan to do this two districts for a start. PHASE IIISponsorship assistance of Rs.4000/- per child per year will be given to children who have lost a parent or wage earner or whose family is incapacitated in some way due to calamity. This will we done after preliminary survey and details are obtained. Social Worker will be stationed in that District to support and counsel the children and parent. This money will be paid as monthly instalments of Rs.250/- per month for a year. Rs.600/- will be used for group services such as health care, tuition classes etc. and Rs.400/- for Administration. At the end of the year the circumstances of the child will be reviewed for an extension of the support for one more year or for a long-term sponsorship until the child completes schooling. We strongly believed that intervention at this critical juncture will prevent children from dropping out of school and being forced to become child labour. PHASE IVThe Government is setting up temporary children's homes in each of the Districts (Three) to care for total orphans. The numbers are still being verified. We plan to partner Government in caring for these children and planning for the future. We propose to have a social worker in each of the homes to counsel and mentor the children. This social worker will also help in designing long term care plans for individual children, such as kinship care, foster care or adoption. As part of the partnership we will also provide any necessary infrastructure, play materials, leisure activities etc. that the children need. Donation may be sent by Cheque or Demand Draft addressed to: Indian Council for Child Welfare, Tamil Nadu5, 3 rd Main Road West, Shenoy Nagar, Chennai - 600 030, Tamil Nadu, India. Donations in kind can also be sent to the above address. For further information, if needed, please call: Tel: 0091 - 44 - 2628 2833 Fax: 2621 2550 Email: iccwtn@md3.vsnl.net.in Donation to the Indian Council for Child Welfare, Tamil Nadu are exempt under 80G of the Income Tax Act, Government of India. The Donations from outside India should be sent by Bank Transfer: The bank details are given below:
|