Archive for August 28, 2010

“My Five Best Friends”

August 28, 2010 operationsafe Humanitarian Work, OpSAFE Camps
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I received this picture from the team finishing up camps with Tibetan children in the quake ravaged town of Yushu.  She has decorated her cloth with each of the five characters from the story “Pete’s Adventure” and has written next to it these words, “These are my five best friends.”

Each of the characters teaches the children a lesson for recovery from trauma.  But I was touched that she would call them her friends.  A lesson is information, knowledge that can be helpful or give better understanding but a friend is so much more than that.  A friend is comfort, encouragement, and strength.

This girl was at a boarding school when the earthquake happened.  After the disaster she learned that she had no home to return to and her family was dead.  While some children at the school returned home to their parents or were helped by relatives, she had nowhere else to go and became an orphan and her school an orphanage.

Our team of volunteers give these children love and attention, listen to their fears and comfort them, but after the camp is done they have to leave.  Our hope is that the characters that we leave with the children, with the lessons that they share would provide more than just knowledge.  We hope that these children would find good friends to see them through the most difficult times.

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OpSAFE Tibet Field Report #4

August 16, 2010 operationsafe Humanitarian Work, OpSAFE Camps, traumachildren
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OperationSAFE camps are designed to be very flexible because the situation on the ground in post-disaster settings is often still very fluid. We found this to be especially true in Yushu.  Even with the loss of most of the children to a sudden summer holiday, the team adjusted and continued the camp and actually found it to be more effective as the volunteers were able to spend more concentrated time with the children who had no where else to go.


As the second night of camp wrapped up, I heard stories from each volunteer talking about how their relationships with the children had grown and developed.  One volunteer had stated flatly the day before that all of his kids were “fine” and they probably didn’t need any trauma care at all.  But after the second day he saw that these children had lots of needs and hurts just under the surface.  During the story time discussion a couple of children had tears and opened up with their crew leaders about their own fears and loss.  Even with all of the difficulties, it was starting to happen.  The connections were being made and love was finding its way through every barrier.

The team would spend two more days with the children but I had to hurry back to Japan.  As I hugged them goodbye I knew that despite all of the setbacks and changes, the crucial work that we had come to do was being accomplished, these children would know that they are loved and would receive hope for the future.

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Gallery: Beautiful Faces

August 6, 2010 operationsafe Humanitarian Work
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Meet my new friends from the Tibetan plateau!  They are each beautiful, unique, precious and in great need.

Read about our work

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OpSAFE Tibet Field Report #3

August 5, 2010 operationsafe Humanitarian Work, OpSAFE Camps
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Out of the Frying Pan …

After the first day of the camp the whole team was excited at how well it went.  Even with the time restrictions and late start we were confident that it would go well.  But the next day brought a very different set of circumstances.  The close to 80 students at the orphanage went each morning together to a public school.  When they returned at lunch they happily announced that they had been given the next week off as a summer holiday.  It was then that we learned that the orphanage was not really an orphanage, but had become an instant orphanage after the earthquake.  Like many schools in rural China, the students boarded at the school and went home to spend holidays with their parents.  So when summer vacation was finally announced the children were ecstatic, except for the 20 or so children who had no home to go back to.

I gathered our team together and shared with them that there are two children that I would do anything in the world for, my own son and daughter.  I don’t need five children or ten or twenty to justify going out of my way to love them.  I am happy to do it for two.  These twenty children left at the orphanage with nowhere to go are exactly the ones who don’t have anyone who loves them like that and need our help the most.  We decided to press on with the camp even though most of the children were gone.

Broken Glass

That afternoon, I walked in front of the row of tents that housed the children, looked down at the gravel and was surprised to see broken glass.  Not just one or two pieces but hundreds of sharp pieces of glass mixed in with the rocks.  Looking at old pictures on googlemap now, I can see that where the tents are standing there used to be a school building. The rubble had been cleared but the glass from the windows remained.  That afternoon before the program I spent picking up glass.  As I picked up glass and nails and trash, little hands started to join me and soon we had five large wash basins full.  Near the corner of one of the buildings I was once again surprised to see a glass IV bottle laying to the side of where the children played.  I thought to myself, “no way… there is not going to be a needle on the end of this tube.” But sure enough there was.  So often those who are caring day-in and day-out can become desensitized to the little things that matter most.  In there struggle to provide food, shelter, clothing, medicine and education, they can easily miss kindness, compassion, concern and love.  This is why I believe in bringing volunteers into disaster zones, even months after the heavy work is done.

… to be continued

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OpSAFE Tibet – Field Report #2

August 4, 2010 operationsafe Humanitarian Work, OpSAFE Camps
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I am simply amazed at the flexibility and determination of our team of volunteers who were only trained a week ago.  The orphanage has very strict rules and limited staff and have given us only  two hours each evening to hold the camp.  However, the two hours are broken up by dinner in the middle and many of the students have homework to finish from school during the day.  We have had to adapt and adjust on the fly and the team has stepped up to the task.
Building the Crews
During lunchtime we registered
the children and assigned them into crews.

Each Tibetan name is long and unfamiliar to our Chinese volunteers and so they ate lunch with their crew to help them learn their children’s faces and names and get to know them.  The children are for the most part very friendly, but behind the smiles there is a lot of pain.  For many the loss of their parents is fresh from the earthquake.

Opening Assembly

With limited time to run the camp the first day was quite frustrating as we had to wait for local officials to come and give speeches at the opening assembly.  After waiting for close to an hour, the officials never showed up and we decided to press forward with the camp anyway.


Story Station
For this first camp we were hoping that there would be a
translator that could help us tell the story in the local dialect,however with none available,
our story teller proceeded to tell the story in Chinese that the children are learning in school. From the rapt faces of the children it seemed to work.

Game Station

The obstacle course was made out of odds and ends lying around, a piece of wood, a desk, some wash basins.  The children helped each other go through blindfolded, reinforcing the idea that “I am not alone”

Hygiene Station

We continued the use of the hygiene station that we developed for Haiti.  I cannot tell you how great it felt to see the layers of dirt come off of those little hands.  Over five days they will also learn to brush their teeth and receive a toothbrush and paste, learn how to keep germs from spreading and learn how to clean and bandage a wound to keep it from getting infected.


Craft Station

The craft station is located in a blue disaster tent and the children got to color their nametags.  One little girl showing signs of trauma already is very withdrawn, unwilling to participate in most activities and when she colored her nametag used black to mark out the entire picture.



Assembly

Adapting to the time-constraints we conducted two stations before dinner, gave the children some time to do their homework and then opened up the session after dinner with a mini-assembly to remind the students of the theme, “I am not alone” and teach them a song.

Adapting as We Go
After dinner some students needed to use the indoors to do homework, so the story station was moved out into the courtyard.  The children love the story and gave the storyteller their full attention.
Homework

We are working through the issue of how the children can both do their homework and attend the camp.  Our camp director and myself listened to the children recite Tibetan scripts and Chinese texts to help them not be distracted.  If they do not finish their homework they are beaten at school, making it an extremely difficult situation.

Our team from Haikou will continue with this camp until the end and then start training volunteers for the next camp in an even more remote village.  Please remember all five of the teams conducting OpSAFE camps in various settings and circumstances.

… to be continued

Jonathan Wilson

OperationSAFE

http://opsafeintl.com

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OpSAFE Tibet – Field Report #1

August 3, 2010 operationsafe Humanitarian Work, OpSAFE Camps
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The Journey to Yushu

Five OpSAFE camps for children who have suffered trauma are being held in both Qinghai and Sichuan.  Our team left on Monday morning on what was supposed to be a 30 hour bus ride to Yushu, the center of the quake.  We started out with three vehicles, a bus, a van and a car, packed full of volunteers, materials and equipment.

By the first night we were well into the tibetan area of Sichuan, and all of us bedded down in sleeping bags on the floor of a lama’s house.  We spent the all-day ride getting to know our new teammates, mostly college students volunteering on their summer holiday.  The OpSAFE team rotated between the vehicles getting to know everyone.  Little did we know that we would have much more opportunity to bond!

The Second Day on the Road

Waking up early to get on the road we were hoping to make it to Yushu late that evening, but almost as soon as we got started we were stuck behind a line of trucks on a steep grade.  Rain during the night had made the road muddy and a massive truck was stuck in the mud.  We took the time for devotions and soon after our time was done a police vehicle showed up and within a couple of hours machinery was brought in to fix the road.  But we knew that we would be unable to reach Yushu that night.

Toward evening we passed a public bus bound to Yushu from Chengdu and were delighted to see some one of our other teams on the bus.  They were headed to a small school in a very remote village in the tibetan region of Sichuan. The team had visited the school the year before and they had a joyous reunion with the principal and his wife.  Through support from our partners in China, the school has built new classrooms and has grown, providing education for children in a region where there is very little available.

That night we arrived very late at the town of Gansu, deep in the Tibetan region of Sichuan, and checked into a hotel, expecting to press through to Yushu the next day.  We woke up the next morning to the beautiful sight of mountains at dawn and a landscape dominated by Tibetan houses, lamaseries and stupas.

The Third Day on the Road

We once again expected to reach our goal that evening but in the midst of picturesque mountains, rivers, and yak pastures all above 4000 meters our bus experienced major engine failure.  As we waited for a mechanic to arrive and miraculously fix the bus along the side of the road, our team spent the time in devotions, then in organizing roles for the camp, then in getting to know the curious tibetans on whose land we were stuck.  We ended up spending the entire afternoon with a wonderful family sharing about our different lives.

After all the time spent by the side of the road, we were forced to find lodging in a small town where it seemed that there were more dogs than people.  At that time of night the only place available was a filthy dormitory above a karaoke bar blaring music with drunk patrons.  We ignored the dirty sheets and the flies, laid down our sleeping bags and tried to rest, knowing that we would finally reach our destination the next day.

The Fourth Day on the Road

Crossing from Sichuan into Qinghai over a pass of 4700 meters, we stopped to take a photo and found a family of nomads herding their yaks at that high altitude.  We had difficulty catching our breath, but gave thanks that we had finally made it, after four days of travel.  After training and travel, finally we were going to begin what we had worked so hard to start.

Arriving safely at the orphanage we set up tents, met the staff and children and prepared to start our camp immediately as we had already lost precious time.  But there were still more obstacles to be overcome.  … to be continued.
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