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We have all been hearing stories of individuals, families and whole communities bereaved, orphaned, displaced, injured - and also surviving, through help received locally and from around the world. The response has been greatly encouraging. We are grateful to all those who have channelled their response through us to our partners.

What has been South Asian Development Partnership’s response?

We are partnering with experienced organisations on the ground, with whom we have well-established links. Our partners EHA and YFC Sri Lanka are working in some of the most badly affected areas, which are often the most remote. They, like many others, have already responded to the immediate needs. Now they are identifying ways to respond to longer-term needs - to rebuild families and communities; and to enable men and women to re-establish their livelihoods. They have the advantages of previous experience, local knowledge and appropriate resources.

INDIA
Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA)
EHA, working in partnership with EFICOR and Discipleship Centre, took up a short-term project for communities in the remote Andaman & Nicobar Islands, very badly damaged, because of being much closer to the epicentre; as well as two areas in Tamil Nadu, south India. The project supported 10,000 families in 30 villages/camps, through the immediate provision of food, safe water, shelter, medical care, grief counselling & sanitation.

In the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, EHA and its partners are some of the few organisations authorised by the Government of India to continue a long-term programme.

Asha Sagar project
This is a joint project of EHA and the Pillar Health Centre (PHC), Port Blair.

The project aims to:

• Provide primary health care to 2,000 tsunami-affected families in Port Blair, Hut Bay, Middle Andaman and 2 other islands.
• Provide a mobile clinic for South Andaman
• Train 20 Community Health Workers, who will in turn train another 60 local ‘Change Agents’
• Provide ante-natal and post-natal care to at least 50 pregnant women
• Immunise at least 200 children under 5 years old, (from the 2,000 families) with UIP and tetanus vaccines
• Provide trauma counselling for at least 200 people, through the Community Health Workers and Change Agents
• Run weekly Preventative Health sessions in each of the camps / settlements
• Provide Health Kits to each of the 2,000 families
• Establish Health Committees for each of the camps / settlements

EHA are hoping to reach some of the most isolated tribal groups in the Andamans, such as the Nicobari tribal settlement on Little Andaman – an isolated and largely forgotten people, whose settlement was washed away.

The intervention will be made in consultation with camp coordinators and the ‘captains’ – the clan leaders of the tribal communities, through periodic meetings.

The project should be sustainable in the long term:

• it is making use of the already existing structures of PHC and its contacts in the islands
• care is being taken not to duplicate work, by consulting with the government and other groups
• the newly trained Community Health Workers and local ‘Change Agents’ will make an on-going and long lasting contribution to their communities

Click here for latest news: EHA update

SRI LANKA
Youth for Christ - Sri Lanka (YFC)
YFC has worked for many years with all communities in 100 locations island-wide, particularly with disadvantaged young people. As well as helping with emergency relief (packing and distributing goods, helping in refugee camps and cleaning up debris), its 96 staff and 200+ volunteers have been focussing on helping young people badly affected by the disaster.

They have distributed 34,000 ‘back-to-school’ packs containing a school bag, lunch box, stationery and clothes. They have been eagerly received everywhere.

They have also been addressing other immediate needs, such as the building of toilets in schools, and in one, even a bathing area (essential for children now living in camps). They have provided A level exam guides and mid-day snacks and also trained 532 volunteer grief counsellors.

YFC are now working on longer term projects for youth and children, across the communal and political divisions:

Four Study Centres (East, North, North East and South)
where 20-24 students in each place can live and study in preparation for the all important A level exams in June.
(£4,500 each)

Counselling Training
Working with the government to provide training for caregivers in the Jaffna area

Scholarship Assistance:
It is not uncommon in Sri Lanka for parents from the poorer economic sector to apply pressure on children to drop out of school, because schooling is too costly for the family. Scholarship assistance for some of the tsunami affected students can enable them to stay in school.

School Reconstruction
If permission is given they plan to help reconstruct a school in the rebel held area of Mullativu

Twinning Schools
They would like to facilitate twinning arrangements between schools in affected areas and elsewhere in the world

Click here for latest news: YFC update

Thank you for giving

We are grateful to all who have donated. So far we have received £61,496.41.

We have allocated the funds raised, as follows:
20% for immediate relief and 80% for long term re-building.

We want to do this in ways that will reach those who may ‘slip through the net’ of the large programmes or political and religious divides, often those who are the poorest and most vulnerable.

We have already sent £10,000 to each organisation towards their short-term needs.

More is still needed

Tsunami Appeal | Diaspora Responds to the Tsunami
Feb 2005 Update from Emmanuel Hospital Assn | Feb 2005 Update from Youth For Christ
100 Days Post Tsunami Report on EHA's Tsunami Relief Work
April & May Update on EHA's Tsunami Relief Work
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