250,000 children missing school due to floods in Cambodia

Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Press Release: Save The Children

250,000 children missing school due to floods in Cambodia

Close to a quarter of a million children are missing school because of the floods in Cambodia.

Heavy monsoonal rains have caused extensive flooding across 17 of the country’s provinces and forced the closure of over 1,000 schools – and many may not reopen until the end of the year. Nearly 250 people have died since the floods began in mid-September and many children and their families face food shortages due to the 390,000 hectares of rice paddies that have been affected.

Decades of experience have taught us how important it is for children to continue their education in an emergency so that they can learn new skills to help them keep safe. Save the Children is working closely with the Cambodian Ministry of Education to establish a network of Temporary Learning Centres in Kampong Cham and Prey Veng. Within the next five days, Save the Children will establish six Temporary Learning Centres in Kampong Cham for up to 300 children.

It is also important children spend time with other children of a similar age so they can support each other says Liz Gibbs CEO of Save the Children New Zealand.

“Save the Children is working to keep children safe in Cambodia and help relieve some of the stress and anxiety they are facing as a result of the floods. We have set up child friendly spaces at evacuation centres for children to play and unwind and just get the chance to be kids. Games played in child friendly spaces also help children become more aware of warning signs of potential risks to them and actions they can take to stay safe,” Ms Gibbs says.

This week Save the Children will start its second phase of distributing food and relief items like water filters, mosquito nets, blankets and soaps. By the end of the week we aim to have reached nearly 17,000 people, mainly women and children, since the start of the floods. We are also establishing health stations to provide urgently needed basic health services to flood-affected children and their families

Children’s Emergency Fund: By donating to the Children’s Emergency Fund you can help us save more children’s lives. Children are extremely vulnerable when disaster strikes and the sooner we arrive, the more children we can save. Save the Children New Zealand established the Children’s Emergency Fund in 2010 to enable us to fund emergency responses quickly and effectively. Recently, our Children’s Emergency Fund has been used to help deliver the Journey of Hope programmes in Christchurch and assist with emergency responses in Japan. For more information visit www.savethechildren.org.nz