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The Tsunami: One Year Later

The South Asian tsunami of December 2004 killed over 180,000 people and left almost two million homeless. In the aftermath of this almost unfathomable disaster, there was a tremendous outpouring of generosity and support from people around the world. MADRE members responded immediately with generous donations for MADRE's Sri Lankan sister organization, INFORM, enabling them to provide tsunami survivors with clean water, food, medicine, and trauma counseling. Throughout the year, MADRE members have continued to stand by the women of INFORM, supporting their long-term efforts to rebuild and ensure that women's human rights are protected during tsunami reconstruction. Below is a report of INFORM's work in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami and the year that followed.

The Immediate Aftermath: December - March

In the first weeks after the tsunami, INFORM focused on meeting peoples' immediate needs for water, food, and medicine; assessing damage; reconnecting families who had been separated; and beginning to deal with survivor's shock and grief.

With support from MADRE members, INFORM:

• Delivered medicines and medical supplies to hospitals in affected communities;
• Provided temporary shelter to thousands of people who had been left homeless;
• Delivered ground cloths and lanterns to families living in quickly constructed tent shelters;
• And ensured that medical needs of survivors—including those who required daily treatments for heart disease, high blood pressure, and other serious conditions—were met.

INFORM also began visits to relief centers set up by the state and religious and charitable institutions to ensure that the rights of women and children, as well as all marginalized groups, including the disabled and the elderly, were being respected.

Starting to Rebuild: April - December

As the year went on, INFORM continued to meet often with women and activists from affected communities to hear their concerns and ensure that relief efforts were responding to their immediate needs.

During this time, MADRE helped INFORM continue to provide direct relief in response to the unmet needs expressed by women and families, including:

• Fruits and vegetables to supplement government food rations of rice, flour, lentils, sugar, and cooking oil;
• Supplies for pregnant women and new mothers, including infant mosquito nets and mats;
• Cooking utensils, which became essential as the supply of prepared food was phased out and families were encouraged to start cooking for themselves;
• Glasses for the many people who lost theirs in the tsunami;
• Crutches for injured people;
• Children's clothes;
• Portable lamps for women living in temporary shelters;
• And, for the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year in April—Sri Lanka's biggest festival of the year—INFORM supplied fabric for women to make clothes—the first time in four months that many people had something new to wear.

As people began to make a slow transition from tents and big public buildings to other temporary shelters, INFORM worked to ensure that these new shelters provided access to electricity, water, and sewage and garbage disposal, and that children could start returning to school.

INFORM also organized exchanges between tsunami-affected women and children from different ethnic groups and areas of the country, providing essential trauma counseling while also building connections across ethnic and geographical divides—an essential task in a country torn by civil strife.

One Year Later: Looking Forward

Today, INFORM is working hard to find ways in which the tsunami reconstruction can create new spaces for people to work together for peace and for a lasting resolution of Sri Lanka's ongoing conflict. One of INFORM's main goals is to create resource centers in affected communities, giving tsunami survivors something concrete and permanent that they can call their own—a space where people can receive counseling and support, use a telephone, and send a fax or email. The centers will also provide a forum for children and young people in these very poor, under-resourced communities to learn computer skills.

Click here to support INFORM's rebuilding efforts.

All photos by INFORM