Tsunami Survivors Continue to Rebuild Lives Almost One Year On

Survivors of last year’s devastating Boxing Day tsunami continue in their daily struggle to rebuild their lives nearly one year after the disaster. ACT and other Christian charities have been helping them in this struggle.

One of the greatest challenges that remain for many of Sri Lanka’s communities that survived the disaster is the lack of permanent housing, reports Action by Churches Together.

|PIC1|ACT has been supporting 175 families currently living in Angulana camp south of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo since June, with 45 of the families coming from the same village.

The families had previously found temporary accommodation in a temple school in Pandura, assisted by the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA).

Priyantha Peiris, his wife Suwarnalatha and their three-and-a-half year old daughter all survived the tsunami but lost all their life possessions. Suwarnalatha also suffered the loss of sight in one eye after being swept away by the waters of the tsunami.

“I can’t read anymore but sometimes I use the spectacles of my mother-in-law,” said the 31-year-old. “Somehow I feel sad for my life."

She added, however, that she did not want to complain despite life being hard on her and her family: “Life is a bit difficult, but we are alive.”

The Sri Lankan Government has recently approved a proposal by the YWCA, through its membership in the National Christian Council of Churches of Sri Lanka (NCCSL), and made possible by the ACT Tsunami Appeal, to buy land and construct 70 permanent houses.

|TOP|“It’s a lovely piece of land,” said the YWCA’s project coordinator in Panadura, Sharmini Tennekoon.

Suwarnalatha and her family along with the other families in the camp have each been allocated one room of their own, less than 10 square metres, and with a small “kitchen” in one corner.

Electricity has also recently been installed in the camp and the family have been able to buy a fan on an instalment plan, although the build-up of the heat during the day in the houses continues to be one of the biggest problems.

The camp is clean, however, despite five families each sharing one toilet and a leakage in the tank for drinking water. There is, as yet, no outbreak of disease in the camp.

Suwarnalatha expressed her thanks to the YWCA, with the help of ACT, for having stood by the family and welcomed the news that her family will soon be able to move into a new house.

“We have been suffering a bit and now we really want to move somewhere else, so we can live our life again,” she said.

“We are still down, but we are coming up step by step,” said Suwarnalatha as she took visitors on a tour of the camp.

The YWCA continues to run a nutrition programme for mothers and children, which includes training on how to ensure children are given nutritious meals.

The programme forms part of a larger programme designed to reduce poverty called Hope for the Hopeless.

Forty-eight women will be given nutritious food by the programme to supplement their diet and facilitate breastfeeding, with the families also being supplied with mosquito nets and kitchen utensils to help them set up their homes again.

“They had no proper way of living and bad nutrition had put their health in danger,” said Mrs Tennekoon. “For pregnant mothers it is a disaster to eat only rice, therefore we have provided them with fresh vegetables too.”

Many of the women in the Anguluna camp have also been helped into starting their own micro enterprises with loans of 20 to 30 USD which have enabled them to start selling tea in the market place or run small shops.