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MADRE Sending Emergency Aid to Women's Organizations in Sri Lanka

December 29, 2004—New York, NY. MADRE, an international women's human rights organization, is working with INFORM, a women's organization in Sri Lanka, to provide urgently needed support for survivors of the December 26th tsunamis.

The death toll across the region has been rising steadily for days: it has already surpassed 75,000 and is expected to exceed 100,000. A UN health agency has warned that expected outbreaks of malaria, cholera, and dengue fever could double the death toll. So far, more than a third of the dead are children.

In Sri Lanka alone, over one million people have been displaced. Among them are tens of thousands of pregnant women and nursing mothers, who require emergency medical attention and trauma counseling.

MADRE is currently raising money to send to INFORM, a Sri Lankan umbrella organization capable of reaching out immediately to many different communities throughout the region. Funds will be used to establish and equip emergency health centers where:

• survivors can receive the emergency medical attention and clean drinking water they so desperately require and
• displaced women and families can receive crucial trauma counseling, which will help them cope with the deaths of their children and other loved ones, gradually heal from their trauma, and begin to rebuild.

Vivian Stromberg, MADRE�s Executive Director, says of MADRE's role in the relief effort: "Everybody wants to do something and every act of support counts. MADRE's decades-long experience has taught us that emergencies like this one will leave people in crisis for a long time. That's why we're supporting the efforts of women's organizations to provide trauma counseling along with emergency medical attention."

MADRE is an international women's human rights organization that works in partnership with women's community-based groups in conflict areas worldwide. Our programs address issues of armed conflict and forced displacement; women's health and reproductive rights; economic justice and community development; Indigenous Peoples' rights and resources, food security and sustainable development; human rights advocacy; youth; and US foreign policy. MADRE provides resources and training to enable our sister organizations to meet immediate needs in their communities and develop long-term solutions to the crises they face. Since we began in 1983, MADRE has delivered over 21 million dollars worth of support to community-based women's groups in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans, and the United States.