PESHAWAR, Oct 19: Scores of volunteers have been visiting the welfare and rehabilitation home set up for quake-stricken women and children here for extending a helping hand to the staff there.

“As the centre has yet to start functioning, we have been noting down contact numbers and addresses of these volunteers and if need arises they would be called,” said Zahida Begum, manager of the welfare home.

The home has been established exclusively for helpless women and children who have no place to live after their medical treatment in local hospitals. It has been set up in a spacious compound in Hayatabad which in the past housed a hospital for Afghan refugees.

Staff on duty said that volunteers have been visiting the centre regularly and requesting that some task should be assigned to them for helping the quake-affected people.

Ms Zahida and her 30-member staff “are fully prepared to meet the challenge and are only waiting for the affectees to arrive”.

“The departments concerned may start registration of the inmates for this centre in a day or two,” the manger told Dawn.

She added that they were ready and the only thing they now needed was the arrival of the affectees.

The centre is meant for coping with 300 affectees and in case of emergency its capacity could be increased up to 1000 persons.

In 50 rooms, the staff has placed mattresses with clean bed-sheets. A dinning-room and common-room have also been established so that the affectees could sit together there for some time.

Explaining the mechanism for admitting the affectees in the centre, Ms Zahida said that they would be registered either at the crisis management cell set up in the home department or by the district coordination officer’s office.

She added that the registration of stricken people was important as it would help their relatives in locating them.

The home has been functioning under the city district social welfare department. The project is initially for a period of one year, but it could be extended as per the demand of the situation.

In addition to boarding and lodging facilities, the welfare home would also concentrate on rehabilitation of women and children by providing them vocational training. The centre would also provide medicines to the inmates.

The staff members include health professionals, vocational trainers, teachers for religious and psychological counselling, etc.

The staff would work in three shifts. In each of the shift, there would be ten staff members, the manager added. In case of emergency the number of staff members would be increased by the department.

At present, the NWFP government has set up two welfare home: one at Hayatabad for women and children and the other at Larama village on the Charssada Road for men.

Staff members of both the centres said they were only waiting for the go-ahead from the government for the admission of the affectees.