Baby Sabrun in her mother's arms
Stories of hope
With World Vision's support lives have been changed even in the most difficult circumstances
Read the stories below to learn more about how, with your support, World Vision can continue to work in emergency situations providing help and assistance to the most vulnerable.
Helping them hold on
She has prickly heat all over her body and sleeps in a dark room full of people. It is hot and humid. Sabrun is 20 days old, her family is displaced, and her home damaged. Yet Sabrun is lucky to have both her parents and two-year-old sister by her side – many families are still tracing their loved ones.
When the time comes to leave the camp, Sabrun’s father Usman will take his wife and daughters home to an empty and broken house. He says his best hope is to get a polythene sheet and erect a makeshift tent where his thatched home stood.
Usman works as a rickshaw puller, earning 40 rupees (about 50 pence) a day. At a time of increasing food prices, disasters such as flooding are a threat to the very existence of struggling families like Usman’s. “The wages I get will not increase, while the cost of living and food prices are increasing by the day”, he says. Tiny Sabrun and her family cannot afford a disaster.
World Vision brings relief
For now, baby Sabrun and her family are taking shelter in a relief camp, run by the local authorities and assisted by World Vision. They shelter in a classroom-turned dormitory and receive three meals a day. World Vision is providing cooked meals and survival kits to this camp
and 349 others. These camps were established after a burst dam in neighbouring Nepal caused widespread flooding in northern India, affecting four million people. Many lost family members, homes, and livelihoods. Since the flooding started in August, more than 90,000 people have been reached with vital food, healthcare and sanitation supplies.
Since the polluted floodwaters spread water-borne diseases such as cholera or digestive disorders, the Government and aid agencies have been installing hand pumps to ensure a supply of safe drinking water. In addition, World Vision is educating the displaced families about sanitation, health and nutrition. Local staff help prepare the families to face the aftermath of the disaster: when they return home, there will be no fields, no rice and limited food for months.
World Vision relief workers are also working with families to tackle the negative impact of the disaster, addressing issues such as migration. The danger of human trafficking is another possible consequence of the situation: more vulnerable women are now approached to take up a job in the cities, many of whom would end up in bondage or forced into prostitution.
Vulnerable families need long-term help
Nine-year old Kushbu’s mother has also travelled to the city in order to support her family. Kushbu and her younger brother Badal now live with their father, uncle and grandmother. “My father has mental health difficulties and my mother works in Delhi,” the girl explains. She leads World Vision relief workers to her home, a thatched shelter standing on a piece of land surrounded by water. The water has destroyed parts of the hut, and is on the verge of collapsing. It is patched up with plastic sheeting. Outside is an English grammar textbook. “This is torn because of water,” she says.
The floods forced Kushbu to grow up fast. She is responsible for her fragile family’s wellbeing. Together with her brother, she queued for an hour at the emergency food distribution centre in Madhepura town, Bihar, but returned with food enough for one person only. Their journey has taken them through floodwater contaminated with sewage. Kushbu leads her brother by the hand: “Be careful, don’t go to the sides – it’s deep there.”
Kushbu and Badal are not alone in their plight. A total of 315,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed across Bihar, and for each family, the struggle to rebuild their lives is still just beginning.
Kushbu and her grandmother at a relief camp in Bihar