Now that they are here and safe, the family avoids talking about their ordeal. You have many traumatized children here. Relief organizations are setting up schools, theater programs, play groups and other outlets for children. But school is being offered only to those between the ages of 7 and 14, and it cannot accommodate all of these children. Of the 2,500 primary-age children at the Brazda camp, for instance, only 400 attend school.
Children do have other outlets.
At a children's center at the Brazda camp run by a coalition of Israeli youth movements, children tell their stories with pictures. They draw houses and flowers, helicopters and flames. They look forward to this. Before, they were just wandering around. At another tent center, run by Save the Children, the preschool-age attendees clearly showed the effect of their troubles, said Hava Svirca, a teacher.