Tsunami Relief Central to Churches' Mission One Year On
Episcopal News Service. December 23, 2005 [122305-1]
Matthew Davies
Committed to rebuilding communities and responding to individuals' and families' basic needs, Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) has partnered with churches throughout Asia this past year to help millions of people whose lives have been affected by the December 26, 2004, tsunami.
Triggered by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the tsunami pounded coasts along India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand and, although the official death toll is still unclear, the giant wave claimed more than 220,000 lives, conservative estimates suggest.
During the past year, ERD, under the new presidency of Robert Radtke, has worked with partners to assist impacted communities through emergency aid, housing projects, trauma counseling, microfinance and provisions for the renovation and repair of school buildings. Fishing rehabilitation has also been a major priority for restoring local economies and workers' livelihoods.
"Like all of our programs, this has been a way to introduce ERD to those churches and countries," Abagail Nelson, vice president of ERD, said. "It would be a shame for these relationships to just end. To be in partnership is to help design the program and to stay in regular contact."
Exchanging experiences
An ERD tsunami partnership consultation, held November 28 - December 2 in Bangkok, Thailand, welcomed more than 35 delegates from the Churches of North and South India, the Diocese of Colombo in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand. The conference was also attended by a representative from Yayasan Tanggul Benkana di Indonesia (YTBI), a member of the global alliance, Action by Churches Together (ACT).
ERD partners presented updated perspectives one year after the tsunami and shared case studies and practical experiences with one another "because their circumstances, visions and approaches really are very different," said Nelson, who attended the conference.
"It's like turning a huge ship," she said. "You may have dealt with rough seas before, but you've never dealt with this rough sea and you have different people all working different types of cogs."
Kirsten Laursen, ERD's senior program director for Asia and new initiatives, began planning the conference in April 2005.
"The meeting was an opportunity for theological reflection on what the tsunami had meant for the church in terms of reaching the poor, stewardship, issues of social justice," she said, "and also to take a look at innovations and activities and what has been accomplished this year, what still lies ahead and some of the challenges."
Housing concerns
One of the biggest challenges is the issue of housing "because of the buffer zones and some of the government restrictions on how close to the water structures are allowed to be built," Laursen said. "People who make a living on the ocean find some of the restrictions untenable and identifying and allocating land has become a huge issue."
In South India, however, 200 new homes and 450 temporary shelters have been rebuilt this year and, in 2006, an additional 400 will be rebuilt with ERD's assistance.
In the Nicobar Islands of North India, one of the more severely impacted communities, the Church of North India (CNI) has successfully advocated for more cost effective and culturally acceptable temporary shelters. With almost 2,000 beneficiaries, ERD has helped rebuild 257 houses with local materials and 132 semi-permanent shelters have been provided.
CNI helped to secure passports for three of the Nicobar representatives, who had to travel for four days to attend the ERD conference.
Sensitive approach
Among its many accomplishments, the Diocese of Colombo, an ERD partner in Sri Lanka, has completed housing repair and construction projects, established boat and canoe yards, provided livelihood support grants to various vocations, distributed bicycles for men, woman and children, helped finance education for children and families unable to fund their own studies, facilitated short-term and long-term trauma counseling workshops and donated equipment to medical institutions.
The diocese has also been involved in many advocacy programs.
"Our mission was to act at a targeted local level with our clergy and in collaboration with local interfaith movements, non-governmental organizations and human rights groups," said diocesan relief volunteer Nagulan Nesiah, who explained that clergy and laity have long been involved in social justice programs aimed at alleviating the economic and emotional status of a population that has long-suffered hardships due to human-made disasters such as war, colonialism and gross disparities in the distribution of wealth.
"It was this previous experience and encounters in political and social concerns which gave us some direction toward our policy and prepared us somewhat for a sensitive and ecumenical approach in relief work," he said. "The value placed on humanity helped supersede other concerns and ERD has been supportive of this approach and partnered with us on all of our programs."
One such rehabilitation plan, a school twinning program, facilitates an Anglican school in the diocese to be 'twinned' with a State school in a tsunami-affected area.
"The response from our Anglican students, staff and principals has been encouraging and the program has evolved into an ideal opportunity for students to help one another while being an incredible educational experience for all," Nesiah said.
The program has been implemented successfully by all eight diocesan schools.
The diocese's main priorities currently are housing construction, children's development, human rights advocacy and long-term trauma counseling support.
"All of our programs are designed to be long-term," Nesiah said. "Beyond meeting basic shelter needs, we have encouraged sustainable livelihood schemes, committed to sponsor children through a university/vocational school level and are currently finding ways to establish practical trauma counseling services for the entire country."
Nesiah said that the community has been touched by the overwhelming response from friends both in and out of the country. He especially remembers a phone call at 3 a.m. on the third night following the tsunami from ERD offering much-needed tents and funds.
"What a supportive wake-up call that was," he said. "The community response has been superb. The concern and confidence we receive from our friends around the world are an inspiration for our relief and rehabilitation efforts."
Churches' growth
Reflecting on the immediate challenges in the weeks following the tsunami, Laursen explained that ERD's partners were thrown into a situation that, in terms of economic, social and human impact, was huge and none had operated on that scale before.
"During the past year, we've seen the churches we're supporting grow into a role where they have a voice in helping to speak to some of the human rights issues and quality of life issues," she said. "We've seen a number of organizations pack up and leave this year. It's a testimony of the church that they are not going anywhere; their programs have stayed."
To date, ERD has received more than $12 million in donations for tsunami relief and development. Some of those funds have been invested in training professional counselors -- what Laursen calls an essential piece of ERD's response.
"Trauma counseling can take several years of healing and it really needs to be community based," Laursen said, indicating a rise in alcoholism, depression and gender violence since the tsunami. "The church is one of the best institutions to manage and provide these kinds of social interventions."
In each case, ERD and its partners are connecting with the governments to ensure that such initiatives are accredited.
Reaching the marginalized
Ensuring adequate health care has been another priority in which ERD and its partners have invested. In South India, a mobile health program, which the government has replicated, has been developed as an essential service to people living in displaced communities. More than 50,000 people have benefited from health centers or mobile clinics in the region sponsored by ERD.
During the partnership conference, each group identified the most vulnerable in their various contexts, such as the Dalits -- the untouchables -- in India who, in most communities, are submarginalized.
"We discussed how the church is trying to reach them and talked about ways in which community structures actually impede them from reaching the most marginalized," Nelson said, citing an example of working with food distribution lines and Muslim widows who are not allowed to leave their homes.
"No disaster is the same but what we bring to a situation is a code of conduct or best practices and a sense of technological advice on how to reach the most marginalized and a way of asking questions that enables our partners to think slightly differently about the situation and to use these disasters as an opportunity to build a new world," she said.
Interfaith concerns
Many Asian governments are suspicious of Christian relief agencies, Nelson explained, because historically they have been used as the first step in a conversion process and an evangelizing tool.
To counter such suspicion, in its process of rebuilding in Sri Lanka, the local committees include Muslim, Buddhist and Christian clerics who work together in the camps, Nelson explained.
"In Indonesia, our partners are working in areas that are predominantly Muslim. Their process has been to incorporate Muslims into their staff and to partake in some of the village celebrations during Ramadan or other Muslim festivals," she said.
One delegate from Indonesia explained that all the relief packages sent from U.S. churches, for example, needed to be carefully examined because they would often include crosses or messages about Jesus.
"You could really see a warm-hearted Wisconsin church innocently wanting to say ‘Jesus loves you' and yet in Indonesia -- in a Muslim community -- this could be seen as an attempt to take them away from their faith," Nelson said. "There is a lot of discussion around interfaith relations and there are some solutions of bridge-building. Although it is not easy, there are real signs of hope."
In South India, ERD is also supporting homes that combine people who've lost children with people who've lost parents and, in Sri Lanka, is helping to support education endowments for children who've lost parents.
"It's not just about putting back what was lost but to break down the barriers that helped to cause the losses to begin with," Nelson said. "We see divisions, conflict, poverty, and in our relief work we look to overcome these issues."
In his Christmas message to the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said that he has received "moving letters describing the sacrificial work of Anglicans in the Province of South-East Asia ... clearly witnessing to the willingness to respond first and ask theoretical questions afterwards."
"Faith is restored and strengthened not by talking but by witness in action," Williams said. "And one of the moving things that this year has brought for me is the awareness of how generously so many have responded to the desperate needs of the tsunami victims."
To support families devastated by the earthquake and tsunamis in South Asia, donate to the South Asia Relief Fund at www.er-d.org or call 1-800-334-7626, ext. 5129. Gifts can be mailed to: Episcopal Relief and Development, South Asia Relief Fund, PO Box 12043, Newark, NJ 07101.