La Guaira, Venezuela (CNN) — Ten-year-old Maria keeps reliving the moment she lost her mother and her life changed forever.
After powerful twin earthquakes devastated parts of Venezuela and destroyed their home in the coastal town of Caraballeda last month, Maria and her brother Damian, 13, were taken in by their aunt, Mercedes Osul.
“My mom was there,” Maria keeps telling her new caretaker.
Damian has been less vocal – processing everything that happened to his family in a different way.
“My nephew hasn’t wanted to talk about it. All he does is play, play,” Osul says. Damian spends much of his day in an improvised soccer field with other children who, like him, have lost their homes and are living in one of the many temporary shelters that have been put up to house those displaced by the crisis.
While adults like Osul are looking for ways to rebuild their own lives, children are learning to live with fear, grief, uncertainty – and how to make sense of the tragedy.
Play as a tool for healing
While Damián prefers to spend his afternoons playing soccer, Maria seeks comfort in candy, their aunt says. Innocent, childlike ways to cope with a tragedy even most adults struggle to reckon with.
Experts say there’s no single way to cope with a traumatic experience. It’s why several shelters have so-called Child Friendly Spaces, where psychologists and social workers support children and teenagers through recreational and group activities, guided play and counseling.
The goal isn’t for them to talk immediately about what happened, but to offer them a safe environment to begin processing it, Manuel Rodríguez Pumarol, UNICEF representative in Venezuela, tells CNN.
“Through play and group dynamics, children can begin to express themselves, begin to release the stress and trauma caused by this catastrophe, and also begin to regain that sense of security they have lost,” he says.
World Vision is one of the charities setting up these spaces. The group has eight to 10 movable spaces across Caracas and La Guaira – the two most affected areas – where children can play board games, card games, do arts and crafts, and play sports, according to the group’s Emergency Response Manager in Venezuela, Andrea Lasso.
“They need some space where they can feel safe again, where they can be protected, where they can play and interact with other children,” Lasso tells CNN. “I think that’s critical for their recovery and for them to rebuild their lives.”
That support extends to the adults in charge of them – to help them process their own grief, but also to be a pillar of strength for the children.
Osul herself is grieving her sister – Maria and Damian’s mother. She’s adapting to a life where she’s caring for her niece and nephew, along with her own two daughters.
The shelter’s psychologist advised Osul not to force Damian to talk about his mother’s death if he didn’t want to, and to let soccer be his outlet.
“They told me to let him vent, that this is a way to vent,” she recalls.
Rebuilding a decimated childhood
The disaster has upended the daily lives of thousands of children. Some left their homes, others lost family members, friends, schools, and life as they knew it.
In the temporary shelters, the challenge is not only to ensure they have a place to sleep or receive food. It also involves helping them recover spaces of safety, play, and learning while their families look for a longer term solution.
Lasso says controlling access to the shelters remains an issue. Aid groups need to ensure shelters are safe places where children are protected from those who would harm them.
“We have seen many people who shouldn’t be there, and are really not affected (by the crisis), but are just trying to take advantage of the situation and take advantage of children, which is so evil and so sad, really,” she told CNN.
UNICEF estimates that about 650,000 people may require assistance after the earthquakes, including around 234,000 children. According to Rodríguez Pumarol, that includes minors who lost their homes or relatives, and those who, although they did not suffer direct damage to their homes, were affected by the interruption of essential services such as drinking water, medical care, or vaccination.
“The earthquake has taken so much from those boys and girls, and our role is to ensure it does not take away their future,” says Rodríguez Pumarol.
Part of that future depends on their ability to return to school. The UNICEF representative explains that some temporary camps are operating in educational centers and that efforts are being made to free up those spaces before the start of the next school year.
Last week, Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, said the country’s Simon Bolivar Orchestra is teaching children to play musical instruments, toys are being distributed and the Venezuelan Football Federation has set up soccer fields for children to play on.
The camps, she said, are separated into family units.
Still, regaining their routines does not mean their fears simply disappear.
Rodríguez Pumarol says many children continue to face anxiety.
“They stay up playing until late at night out of fear that something might happen while they sleep,” says Rodríguez Pumarol.
Families torn apart
The disaster has led to a particularly complex situation for those children who were separated from parents whose fate remains unclear.
Family law specialist Jeslia Vergara explains that, in the absence of parents, the priority of the Venezuelan protection system is to find other relatives who can take care of the children.
Before considering any other measure, says Vergara, authorities must investigate whether there are close relatives, such as grandparents, uncles, or older siblings, who can temporarily assume the children’s care while authorities figure out what happened to the parents.
“If it is reliably demonstrated that both parents are deceased and that there is no family of origin who can take care of these children, the State can declare them adoptable, meaning the children can then become part of a foster family program,” explains Vergara.
The lawyer warns that even in an emergency, these processes cannot skip steps. Families wishing to foster a child must undergo evaluations to determine their suitability and ensure they can provide a safe environment.
“Institutionalization or adoption is the last resort available in Venezuela,” she says.
Starting over
For Osul, the shelter has been a source of help in the midst of a loss she is still trying to process. There, her niece and nephew have received food, spaces to play, and psychological support.
“They give them recreation, take them to psychologists. My daughter loves to draw. Damián is crazy about soccer,” she says about their days in the shelter.
But after losing her sister and taking charge of four children, her main need remains to recover a home for all of them.
“A house. Everything else comes afterward,” she says.
Until then, Damian, Maria, and thousands of kids like them will cling to what they can – candy, sports – for any semblance of comfort during the biggest tragedy of their young lives.
The-CNN-Wire
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