How UNICEF is helping
UNICEF volunteers demonstrate how to prepare Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS), part of a health campaign in relief centres for tsunami-affected displaced people in the Union Territory of Pondicherry.
11 April 2005
Key UNICEF Actions
Working closely with government and partners, UNICEF has:
Health and Nutrition
- Carried out measles vaccination and Vitamin A supplementation campaigns for children in all affected areas, including Andaman and Nicobar islands. In Tamil Nadu, UNICEF and the World Health Organization completed a measles campaign for over 75,000 displaced children under the age of five.
- In Andaman and Nicobar islands, UNICEF has supplied fortified biscuits to relief camps and childcare centers, provided cold chain equipment for hospitals and health care facilities, and provided refurbished equipment in health centers. UNICEF has also provided 20,000 bed nets and 40,000 tubes of mosquito repellant to help prevent malaria.
- Provided support to 100,000 children in about 400 villages in 13 districts, as part of an ongoing programme to assist children who are distressed.
- Carried out training programmes for resource groups of community extenders to provide psychosocial support to children and teachers in affected areas.
- Supplied tents for 91 schools that were destroyed or damaged in Andaman and Nicobar islands.
- Provided education kits for 9,000 students.
Water and Sanitation
- Supplied over 2,000 water tanks in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, 300 in Kerala, and 500 in Andaman and Nicobar islands.
- Provided over 12,000 emergency toilets for relief camps and shelters in Andaman and Nicobar islands.
- Led hygiene awareness campaigns in 225 camps in all affected districts.
- Carried out water-quality assessments and trained non-governmental organizations in the provision of proper sanitation.
- Supplied affected villages with oral rehydration salts, chlorine tablets, soap, bleaching powder and other basic sanitation supplies.