ISLAMABAD, April 16: More than 1,700 children have found critically needed emotional and social support in 40 supervised play centres established by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

These “child-friendly spaces” provide a safe place to restore routines and provide reassurance in areas where children’s schools were destroyed by the Oct 8 earthquake.

Azra Iqbal, a resident of Malkan village in the NWFP, supervises two shifts at the village’s 170-member child protection centre.

She described the crucial role the centres had played in helping children become expressive again after the trauma they had experienced.

“In the beginning, the children wouldn’t talk.

They were totally quiet,” Iqbal said. “But in the last six months, there has been tremendous improvement in their participation.”

Without this child-friendly space, these children would be roaming in the streets, she added.

Samina Gul, an IRC child protection manager, said each centre is staffed by an adult supervisor and two volunteers from within the community.

Supervisors attend a three-day training workshop to introduce them to participatory teaching techniques and alert them to ways to handle children’s psychological trauma.

Girls aged three to 18 and boys aged three to 16 attend the centres, with most children participating for more than three hours a day.

The United States, through USAID, is providing more than $1.5 billion in development assistance to Pakistan over the next five years to improve education, health, governance and economic growth.

In addition, Washington has pledged a total of $510 million in earthquake relief and reconstruction efforts to assist the people of Pakistan and to support Islamabad’s relief and reconstruction efforts. —APP