report in the Philippines about the effects of Typhoon Ondoy on adolescent girls found many were still afraid long after the disaster had happened: “i’m scared that the typhoon will happen again, because maybe it will happen at night not in the morning. if it’s at night, those people sleeping may die. i pity them. i think about them and what it would mean for the typhoon to take them away. Sometimes i need to cry,” said 11-year-old Dinna. Mirasol, 16, commented: “We need to show sympathy and let ourselves grieve. it’s hard to deal with those feelings… we feel so deep.” 32 In this context, psychosocial and other support targeted specifically at adolescents is key, both for their mental health, and to reduce negative coping strategies such as resorting to transactional or unsafe sex, drugs or alcohol; practices which once started are very hard to address and may ruin or shorten their adult lives.
The continuing consequences of what happened are vividly illustrated by the girls’ drawings in the village of Basti mohana Wali in the Punjab. The ‘before the flood’ scenes are colourful, full of flowers and trees and people and houses. The river is just a small blue line on the right. The ‘after the flood’ drawings, in contrast, are dark and monochrome, with drowning figures and children desperately holding hands. many girls had carefully redrawn their first picture and scribbled all over it in a dark colour. “That is to show that everything was washed away, rubbed out,” said Sadia, 13. 33 While agencies and government attempt to take care of the immediate need for food, water and shelter for those displaced by the floods, there is almost no psychosocial support. This is why the child-friendly spaces set up after the floods were so important. The children came together for a few hours a day to play, to learn and to talk about what had happened. These were the only times that anyone offered any psychosocial support. “The children were frightened and not able to sleep at night, so these times were very important for them,” said mohamed Umar, a village leader from Haji Sattar dino Taandio, near the coast in Thatta, Sindh. A 14-year-old girl from Rajanpur commented: “due to the floods, our toys drowned in water and our houses collapsed. We were so afraid that we wake up with nightmares. But [now] we play here and we forget all those situations.” 34
“i am very afraid of snakes. When there is water everywhere they swim through the water and they bite you,” says 12-yearold Zeinab. She has drawn a picture of houses with snakes swimming through them. Qaisar Jamal, who works for the Rural development Policy institute (RdPi), a non-governmental organisation supporting people in times of disaster, says that once someone, particularly a child, has experienced a flood or an earthquake, the fear never really leaves them. “Even now, when it rains heavily in the monsoon season, rumours about flooding begin, and people are afraid that it will happen over again.” in kumbhar Wali village, Salma, 12, says: “i am still scared. i am afraid that the flood will come again. There is no peace of mind.”
Zeinab with her drawing.
naJMa bano
no PEACE of mind: giRLS’ mEnTAL HEALTH AfTER THE 2010 fLoodS in PAkiSTAn nikki van der gaag talks with girls in Pakistan about their fears since the disastrous floods of 2010 that left a fifth of the country underwater and displaced millions of people. How can they be better prepared if floods happen again?
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