An Earthquake's Devastation

A Day of Mourning in China was announced by the Government as we prepared this post. The death toll from last week's earthquake in Yushu, Qinghai Province, has reached 2039, and thousands more were injured. What media pictures haven't shown you are the injured people now filling the hospitals in Xining, and the other heart-broken and devastated people flooding into this city that now need care.

Help Yushu Recover

But first, thank you for all your e-mails and phone calls in support of Christian Action's China team. All our team members are well and are putting everything they can into helping the survivors. Yushu is a hive of activity, but there are also huge needs here in Xining. This is because many of the injured and their relatives were brought here. Our challenge is that they have nothing.

There are patients who have been sent to Xining who have lost contact with their families back in Yushu. There is a great shortage of translators and people to give emotional support to the patients. There are many other patients in hospitals whose relatives need accommodation.

Then there are the University students from Yushu who were studying here in Xining. Many are now orphaned and can't make their way back to Yushu.  Large numbers of secondary school students who survived the earthquake are being transferred to Xining secondary schools. Counselling support needs to be set up for all these traumatised young people.

Those are some of the needs. In addition to going into the hospitals, our staff members have been very busy.

We have networked with universities and professional institutions in Hong Kong to bring thirty social workers and counsellors to provide aftercare support services for the victims. Teams will start arriving in Xining this Friday. They will not only provide trauma counselling, but also train local people in counselling support.

We have partnered with the Hong Kong-based organization Social Workers Across Borders to help the Yushu Children's Home. We will be working together to provide emotional support to victims in general, but in particular we will also be involved in psychological assessment and immediacy counselling for the children and teachers of the orphanage. When the earthquake struck some of our staff were supposed to be attending a ground-breaking ceremony with Yushu government officials for a new orphanage that we were to co-manage with them in Yushu!

We are also in discussions with the government regarding rehabilitation needs. We need to prepare now for the time when all the amputations have been done and wound care is under control. There will then be a great need for therapy and several other services for these injured people. Our hope is that we can get all of these essential steps organized now so that their rehabilitation is not disrupted.

For those who are new to this blog and don't know the background: Christian Action is one of the longest serving Hong Kong-based charities working in Qinghai Province.  Our interest is in saving people on the margins of society who are at risk, and equipping them  with skills and education so that they can go on to live independent lives. In the process of doing this we hope to see the rest of society restored to the point where they will accept those others,such as disabled children, whom they once marginalized.

We ask you at this time to pray for those who are traumatised and for all who are serving them.  And we ask you to please help us with the costs that have been incurred, such as flying in the members of Social Workers Across Borders.

Lastly, if you haven't done so already, please e-mail posts on this blog to your friends and don't forget to hit the Donate button!

Thank you and God bless you all!

Help Yushu Recover

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