After the Tsunami

28 February 2008

Like many other YMCA staffers involved in post-Tsunami rehabilitation work, Mr P Danial, Project Officer for Tsunami projects for the National Council of YMCAs of India, has a very personal memory of the events over three years ago. 

Young women at the embroidery project

"My son was here on holiday. He’d visited the beach and was caught up in the Tsunami. He was thrown up onto the roof of a house and clung on. Miraculously he escaped. That helped me get into the relief work in a very vigourous way." His eyes well up with tears and he wipes them with a large blue checked hankerchief.

Based in Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India, where around 1400 people died and 3000 houses were lost, Mr Danial contacted Madurai YMCA for help. "They are 245 km away but they responded shortly afterwards and I was deputed by the National Council to head up project work here."

We are sitting in the airy dining room of the YMCA premises in Kanyakumari, funded by Y Care International. Large fans whirr overhead, and a cohort of women on a course have just finished a breakfast of dosa and idly. "The immediate relief work took ten to fifteen days, then there was a six month gap of planning what needed to be done. What we’re doing is not disaster mitigation, it’s rehabilitation work," continues Danial. "The rehabilitation work was given to the bigger YMCAs in Madurai and Martandam because they have the organizational structure to implement it.

Two and a half years on, these people have got some confidence in NGOs, but they’ve lost hope that the government will do anything. They got no help from the government apart from temporary shelters and some relief materials."

In the Kanyakumari area, the YMCA has 170 houses either built or under construction, each one housing a family of three to four people. There is an ongoing programme of health camps, and Self Help Groups (SHGs), as well as various training programmes in income-generation, including bee-keeping, tailoring, banana fibre making, and embroidery.

Many beneficiaries, like Josephine May, have benefited from this overlapping programme. She has been in her YMCA house in Manakudy in Kanyakumari district, for nearly two years now, and the garden, with its banana and mango trees and jasmine bush, is a testament to her time there. We sit on the concrete floor of her sitting room, surrounded by pictures of the Virgin Mary, Jesus and Pope Benedict.

Josephine in her garden

"My husband is a fisherman and we have a thirteen year old daughter. Before the Tsunami we lived in a rented house. It was totally destroyed and I lost everything. Afterwards we were put in a camp for a year. It was very hot and my daughter got chicken pox. We’d never heard of the YMCA but the priests recommended us."

"The YMCA brought us to the site to show us. We were so happy. I tried to help out by carrying bricks on my head. This house is safe, I can sleep well and relax. Before our whole house was the size of this room. Now we have a lot of space; my daughter can play, my husband can watch TV and I can go to another room to rest."

"I belong to the kulu (Self Help Group). My neighbour told me about it and I thought it sounded like a good idea. We pay 25rp (20p) a week which earns interest so I can give money to my husband to buy and sell fish. We keep the profit and give back the original capital."

"The kulu told me about the tailoring training, which I’m finding quite helpful. I’m starting to sew clothes for my family and neighbours. It helps me save money for my daughter’s schooling. I want her to become educated but I don’t have enough money to pay for the school fees, the books and the uniform."

She leads us into the garden, the family dog frolicking at her heels. "Before the Tsunami we had a lot of problems. Here we have a kitchen, a bedroom, store room, it’s much better than before, though we still have a lot of money problems.” Josephine shows off her flowers. “I like plants. I have jasmine and roses, though the roses are quite difficult to grow. I have to give them proper soil and water them every day, but I’m happy to do that. I want lots of colours."

Like growing roses, this work takes time and effort and sometimes the results can be mixed. But three years on, Mr Danial asserts, "We are proud of Y Care International and the YMCA. We came out with a big idea, we didn’t think small. This is the biggest single project by the National Council of YMCAs ever. The standard of living of beneficiaries has gone up very much and the Kanyakumari people feel that there’s someone to take care of them."

By Pamela Nowicka for Y Care International