Save the Children, working through its local partner Yayasan Sayangi Tunas Cilik (YSTC), has delivered vital aid on a military plane to Palu, the Indonesian city devastated by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami.
Eight hundred shelter and hygiene kits have been flown to Palu and are being distributed to children and families who urgently need them. Another air shipment and distribution is planned for Saturday.
Meanwhile 1,000 kits to support shelter, hygiene, child-friendly spaces and temporary educational facilities are on their way by road. Child-friendly spaces are specially designed areas which will allow girls and boys, many having lost their families and homes, with a safe place to play and begin to heal from their experiences, helping reduce the risks of violence, exploitation and abuse. They also allow our assessment teams to identify children who may have become separated from their families, and begin the effort to reunify them.
“I can’t overstate how much this aid is needed by girls and boys impacted by the disaster,” said Zubedy Koteng.
“The earthquake and tsunami cut off many transport routes in this remote area. We sent out three assessment teams on different routes with as many supplies as they could carry to ensure we could reach people as fast as we could but the journey has taken days. We are relieved that these much-needed supplies have arrived by plane and are starting to get through.”
“Children urgently need shelter, essential hygiene items to prevent the spread of diseases and contamination as families are packed into evacuation centres with limited supply of clean water and elevated risks of exploitation, violence and abuse. We’re also sending school kits to ensure their education isn’t interrupted any further.”
More than 46,000 children are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN. Save the Children has welcomed Canada’s initial contribution of $1.5 million to the response, applauding the responsiveness of the funding. The aid agency highlighted that Canadian funding had the potential to help meet the immediate needs of girls and boys, including for clean water, protection and other critical needs.
Save the Children has been working in Indonesia since 1976, and has a long history responding to humanitarian disasters in the country, including the recent earthquakes in Lombok and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
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Photos and video of the aid delivery, destruction in Sulawesi and an interview with Save the Children’s Program Implementation Director, Tom Howells available here
Spokespeople are available in Palu and Jakarta.
To set up interviews contact Jessica Bryant in Toronto on +1 647 973 1185/jbryant@savethechildren.ca or Fajar Jasmin in Jakarta on +62 811 881 9912/
Media Contact
For additional information please contact Jessica Bryant, Head of Media, Communications and PR:
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