Send a Message of Hope to child victims of the China Earthquake
On Tuesday, 13 May an 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Sichuan Province in South Western China leaving 71,000 people confirmed dead or missing; and 5 million homeless. 6,898 schools have been destroyed, according to
Han Jin, head of the development and planning department of the Ministry of Education. The implications of the destruction look so grave that Yunnan province, which borders quake-hit Sichuan, has ordered the demolition of all school buildings considered unstable.
Children went back to school Wednesday in improvised classrooms across China's disaster zone. The resumption of schooling for these few children is a much needed semblance of normality in chaotic and fragile times.
School supplies are scant. At a sprawling camp in Mianyang, students had no desks or books.
Associated Press reports that Wei Wuyi, a fourth grader in Mianyang, said she dropped everything when she fled her school in Qushan during the quake, and she fretted Wednesday over a lost book bag. "I like art and math class, so I hope we can have those again soon," said Wei, adding the teacher had been "especially gentle" with the new students.
With millions of refugees living in the open as authorities struggle to find tents for them, temporary classrooms are among the first structures being built in a landscape blighted by vast piles of rubble.
Cities of government-issue, blue-colored tents are coming to dot the Sichuan plain and are filling with survivors who have climbed down from their former mountain homes, uncertain of when, if ever, they'll be able to return.
"I don't know how long we'll be here, but I hope we are here the shortest time possible," said Gao Luwei, a 9-year-old from Dujiangyan. Many of the children in her class in a camp at the Qingyang sports center in the provincial capital of Chengdu are her friends.
Striving to make things feel normal, officials made an effort to keep children from the same schools together.
The return to school marks an important step in restoring continuity to children's lives, said Zhu Jiang, a Chengdu government official who is helping manage a camp housing about 1,000 displaced people.
"The most important thing is to return some semblance of normalcy to the kids' lives," Zhu said. "We don't want them to feel like they're refugees, but like they've simply moved to another place for a sort of extended holiday."
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Search parties comb the rubble at Juyuan Middle School,
in Dujiangyan City, Sichuan |
Rescue teams work through the night with mechanical diggers and their bare hands to find survivors |
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