This is the story of a family who used to live in the village of Khero which is approximately a two-and-a-half hour drive from Larkana town in Pakistan.

It was in the beginning of August that the floods came, catching the family (father, mother and eight children) completely by surprise.

With water levels rising fast, the family had no other choice than to run.

As the ran to escape the flood waters, one daughter, just eight years old, fell down amid the rising water and drowned.

When the family finally reached the relative safety of some higher ground, they discovered another child was missing. The mother still does not know what happened to her child.

Their small family home was washed away by the flood water, along with their six cows and four adult goats.

All what was left were the clothes they were wearing, some identification cards and four young goats.

For two days the family found refuge under a tree along a main road near their village along with others from their village. Then they were eventually picked up by army personnel that brought them to a small camp outside Larkana.

The population of this camp rapidly grew until the facilities could no longer handle the number of people seeking help there.

So Pakistan army set up a new camp in the neighbourhood.

With SOS Children’s Villages Pakistan one of the key organisations involved in providing 77 brand new tents for the displaced people. The camp was named Camp SOS.

The camp now provides shelter to 2,630 people.

All around Pakistan, SOS have now distributed 12,650 food packages for families affected by the flooding, which represents over 2 million meals.

The target is still to provide 100,000 food packages.

Each of the packages contain wheat flour, lentils, rice, cooking oil, sugar, tea, milk powder, salt, chilli powder, washing soap, toilet soap, candles and matches. They cost just £13 each and will feed one family of 6-8 persons for ten days.

Other than food packages, SOS continue to distribute tents and medical items where they can.

But even though progress is being made, the stark reality remains that these peoples’ lives have been changed forever.

The mother of the family that barely escaped the floods, Nazira, is not very positive about her future. “We’ve lost everything, how do we survive when nothing is left?”

One of Nazira’s sons, Shouked says that he is very afraid of water since the floods had reached their village. He wants to go back to school and meet with his friends. He has no idea what became of them, he hopes they are ok.

You can help to ensure that resources are in place to help children like Shouked recover from the disaster and live a long and happy life. The best way to do this is by sponsoring a child with SOS Children’s Villages.

If you click on the button below, then you can find out how SOS child sponsorship programmes work and just how much of a difference you can make in a child’s life.