Earthquake update: food distribution, lessons for children and emotional and psychological support

Setting out from Adana, the team of volunteers, loaded with bananas, arrived in Ekinci for the first English class with the children of the elementary school. Afterwards they were also able to distribute the bananas to the approximately 600 children of the schools of Uzunbag, Yeniyayla and Akdeniz Ilkogretim. A very capable volunteer taught English to the children. Lessons are still held in temporary classrooms, but since the technical inspections have been completed, from next week the children will return to the school buildings. They also learned that two children are still suffering greatly from post-earthquake trauma. One of the two no longer wants to go to school, while the other has stopped speaking. Since AMURT has conducted specific training for these kinds of post-traumatic conditions for the psychologists of Adana, the volunteers offered to put the teachers in touch with one of the psychologists so that she can follow these children.

The earthquake has obviously turned the lives of very many people upside down, and many now live in conditions of constant stress and insecurity. Some mothers, learning that our volunteers practice yoga, asked whether it would be possible to learn precisely how to manage stress, so the Amurt team scheduled two meetings on the subject.

Help is not only material relief, but also the gift of a perspective of hope toward the future, supported by a greater understanding and acceptance of the present. The contagious nature of the selfless spirit and of the good will to get involved, so fully embodied by the AMURT volunteers, is an objective inspiration for those who feel uncertain about what to do and about how to return to inner normality.

The hope is that other volunteers will want to train and continue to be present wherever necessary, because the others could truly be us, and facing life’s challenges in company is the most human response there is.