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Immediate funding, long-term support both essential in tsunami relief efforts
Money is the best way to help right now, and the need will continue long after media coverage abates, NGO representatives say.
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The tsunami that devastated South Asia in December has elicited an outpouring of charity and volunteerism from people around the world. For those eager to provide aid but unsure of how best to help, representatives of nongovernmental organizations say money is currently the most crucial need. Even more important, they say, is that people be aware of the long-term nature of the relief effort, which will continue long after television news coverage wanes.
“What happens in most disasters is there’s an initial outpouring of help, but afterward, when the cameras go away and people stop reporting the situation, the people affected are forgotten,” said Anthony J. Kozlowski, executive director of Seva Foundation.
The disaster occurred on Dec. 26, when an earthquake about 90 miles out to sea from Meulaboh, Indonesia, triggered huge waves that traveled hundreds of miles at high speeds. The waves killed at least 226,000 people around the Indian Ocean — 166,000 in Indonesia, 30,000 in Sri Lanka and 15,000 in India, according to a Reuters report January 19. Millions were left without food, shelter and safe drinking water. Tens of thousands suffered injuries, and infectious diseases are a risk in many locations.
According to Thomas Dougherty, executive director of Doctors of the World-USA, the damage done to the infrastructure of some of the affected countries is extensive.
“The situation is somewhat better – and better is a relative term – in Sri Lanka, in terms of the numbers of buildings that are standing and functional in some way,” he said. “In Indonesia, there’s still a wide section of the western part of Sumatra that is just being surveyed by U.S. military surveyors to get a sense of the damage. They know it’s completely destroyed, but in terms of really being able to map out how assistance can reach that area, that’s still in a survey period.”
Images: DigitalGlobe | |
A coastal area of Gleebruk, Indonesia, before the tsunami (left) and after (right). | |
Doctors of the World
Doctors of the World is an international organization with affiliate offices in 11 countries, with teams currently concentrated in Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Mr. Dougherty said the organization is providing emergency medical relief as well as materials to alleviate or prevent health crises.
According to Mr. Dougherty, Doctors of the World teams have been dispatched to the most heavily affected areas of Sri Lanka and Indonesia, focusing on improving public health and the water supply.
“They have established clinics and refugee shelter settlements and have brought tons of supplies in terms of medicine, chlorination kits, water and food,” he said. “They’re also making an assessment for further rebuilding of the health care system there. Our approach is not only to deliver emergency relief, but also to stay for an extended period of time and help in the reconstruction of health systems.”
Mr. Dougherty said monetary donations are the most effective and practical means of helping his organization’s effort.
“The biggest need is for funds to pay for the materials and supplies and to get people to the areas that are affected,” he said. “We have had a lot of people interested in delivering unused medicines, clothes and things like that. That hasn’t been all that practical. The best thing is to make a monetary contribution that can support the procurement we already have in place.”
Bruce E. Spivey, MD, president of the International Council of Ophthalmology, agreed that donations are probably the most effective way to help at this time.
“If you listen to what the people are saying, it’s ‘send money,’” he said. “We’ve checked with our colleagues in Thailand and Indonesia, and they’re working with the nongovernmental organizations, so our plan is to continue support through the existing NGOs that have capacity in this area.”
A need to respond
The Seva Foundation, an NGO that normally concentrates on eye care and community development, has become involved in the tsunami relief effort because of its long-standing ties to the areas affected by the event.
A founding board member of Seva, Dr. G. Venkataswamy, was the founder of the Aravind Eye Care System, a major eye hospital located in India’s Tamil Nadu province. That province was heavily damaged by the tsunami.
“Seva worked with Aravind to establish the hospital and build it up, to introduce cataract surgery with IOLs and even production of IOLs in India. The clinic he established became the largest eye hospital in the world,” Mr. Kozlowski said.
“The reason we’re responding to the tsunami is because it hit areas that we have been associated with for so long,” he said. “It’s not going to divert us from our primary mission, which is eye care and community development, but we felt we needed to work with our partners on the ground in response to this emergency. We felt the need to respond.”
Mr. Kozlowski said Seva is consulting with the Aravind Eye Care System and other organizations such as Impact Sri Lanka regarding how funds can best be utilized through local NGOs.
Seva is currently raising tsunami relief funds solely through the Internet, Mr. Kozlowski said.
“We have about 15,000 e-mails for constituents that we sent out about a week after the emergency hit,” he said. “Our chair, through other various sources, obtained a list of 200,000 more constituents, and we again sent out e-mails requesting support to the Seva South Asia Emergency Fund.”
Mr. Kozlowski said the focus should now be on the rehabilitation of the people affected by the tsunami.
“We really should think about long-term effects,” he said. “In places like Aceh in Indonesia or several parts of Sri Lanka, where people’s lives were decimated, communities wiped away, it’s going to take years before some sense of normalcy is restored to these places.”
Follow-through
A vital part of the long-term tsunami relief effort, Mr. Kozlowski said, is ensuring that governments make good on their pledges of support.
“This is a concern that humanitarian organizations have all the time – governments make pledges at the height of emergencies and then don’t follow through with those pledges,” he said. “Right now, there is over $300 billion pledged from governments like the U.S., Australia, Germany and Japan. It’s important that governments not just make pledges but deliver on them.”
“Hopefully one can respond to the devastation and the loss by not having to build refugee camps,” he said. “It’s much better to rebuild homes and communities. Once you establish a camp you really establish dependency, and most people, from my experience — and I’ve been in humanitarian work for over 30 years — might need some emergency assistance but don’t want long-term care. They want the opportunity to get back to doing what they’ve done before.”
Mr. Dougherty agreed that long-term assistance is essential. He cited as a previous example the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, that killed 26,000 people.
“It’s going to be similar to Bam, … where we were on the ground within a few days and are still there in terms of rebuilding basic health infrastructures that were destroyed,” Mr. Dougherty said.
“There are still people in Bam living in tents, and systems that existed before to provide basic care still need to be reconstructed. This is partly because resources often quickly go in another direction after the attention and the spotlight are removed. It makes a big difference to have that commitment, and that is what’s being repeated and stressed by the United Nations and other organizations that are in the process of coordinating relief efforts. This isn’t going to be over in a few weeks by any stretch,” he said.
Organizations participating | |
¤ American Red Cross ¤ AmeriCares ¤ CARE ¤ Doctors of the World-USA ¤ Habitat for Humanity International ¤ Helen Keller International ¤ International Rescue Committee | ¤ Oxfam America ¤ Refugees International ¤ Seva Foundation ¤ United Way International ¤ USA for UNHCR ¤ US Fund for UNICEF For a more complete list of charitable organizations in the United States involved in relief efforts, visit the Web site of InterAction, the American Council for Voluntary International Action: www.interaction.org. |
Source: www.interaction.org and the Web sites of other organizations; used with permission. | |
For Your Information:
- Doctors of the World can be reached at 375 West Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10012; 888-817-4357/212-226-9890; e-mail: info@dowusa.org; Web site: www.doctorsoftheworld.org.
- Seva Foundation can be reached at 1786 Fifth St., Berkeley, CA 94710; 800-223-7382/510-845-7382; fax: 510-845-7410; e-mail: admin@seva.org; Web site: www.seva.org.
- David Mullin is Managing Editor of OSN Europe/Asia-Pacific Edition.