Emergency relief underway for earthquake victims in India

SOS Children's Villages of India is providing financial support and 100 survival kits for widowed women and their children in the worst-affected areas of Indian-administered Kashmir - primarily in and around the villages of Uri in the Baramulla district and Tangdhar in the Kupwara district. Each survival kit includes basic essentials such as food, water containers, woollen clothes for mothers and children, as well as blankets and a tent.

Two SOS Child Relief Centres will go into operation on 4 November in the villages of Salamabad and Rangwad, and will provide some 150 children with a midday meal as well as basic literacy and trauma relieving activities. These centres have been set up with winter-proof roofs.

SOS Children's Villages of India is also ready to receive 100 unaccompanied children in need of safe shelter at its children's village in Srinagar, and provide them with temporary care. If necessary, the organisation can accommodate even more children at its other facilities in India.

In Pakistan, the "search and rescue" team of SOS Children's Villages is working tirelessly to identify unaccompanied children in the camps and hospitals in and around quake-hit Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and bring them to the organisation's emergency shelter in Rawalpindi near Islamabad.

So far, there are 40 children and four widowed mothers receiving care at the emergency shelter in Rawalpindi, and more children are expected to arrive within the coming days. Two trained teachers are providing therapeutic activities and games for the children, including drawing and painting sessions as well as games.

Every effort will be made by SOS Children's Villages to reunite the children with their extended families, and then ensure that the families have the means and the resources to care for the children. Those who cannot be reunited with their families will be offered long-term care in a family environment at an SOS Children's Village.

SOS Children's Villages of Pakistan also transported and distributed relief care packages containing dry food, milk, water, blankets and mattresses for some 1,000 survivors in Muzaffarabad and surroundings, and is currently delivering further supplies including energy bars and surgical masks.

SOS Children's Villages has been carrying out humanitarian work in Pakistan since 1975 and in India since 1964.