Aid projects create safe havens for child victims

THE little girl in the stained, faded dress and cheeky smile stood out even in the throng of adorable children. With her head cocked to one side and her eyes bright with curiosity, she pushed forward and demanded an introduction.

Adis Hairita is nine years old and luckier than many of the young tsunami survivors who share the morning school and playtime sessions in a refugee camp in the centre of the Indonesian town of Banda Aceh. Her volunteer teacher, Fatmawati Sulaiman, says 30 of the 90 children who gather under the tarpaulin in the middle of the camp each day have lost one or both parents.

Adis, her parents and all five brothers and sisters survived and she happily lists off their names and tries to point them out in the crowd. But when she is asked about her home and real school, her smile quickly turns into a frown, her bottom lip sticks out and she shrugs her shoulders and stares at the ground. “My house is gone,” she tells a translator. “I have no school.”