How is Tsunami impacting the rest of the villages in Tamilnadu ?

It is also disturbing to see many good NGOs leaving their regular work and moving to work in the Tsunami areas.  A lot more money than is possibly needed or can be used efficiently has been raised by so many organizations across the world for Tsunami relief.  This money has come at a cost.  Some donations were ‘extras’ – new donations that would have otherwise not gone into other programs. But most donations were just shifted from other programs into the Tsunami.  A lot of NGOs across Tamilnadu have been providing health, education, livelihood and other services.  Most of the funds that went to these programs have been shifted into Tsunami relief.  These NGOs find that they cannot get funds for their regular programs.  But they need funds to support their staff and therefore are pushed to work in the Tsunami areas.  This has led to an excess of NGOs and attention and funds in the 300 or so Tsunami villages and a sudden withdrawals of funds and attention and people working in other areas.  This could mean a worsening of health, education and livelihood status in most of the areas. In a way, the rest of the villages in Tamilnadu are slowly bearing the cost of the Tsunami.

What does Tsunami relief and rehabilitation mean? 

A friend I met sometime ago expressed a very narrow definition of Tsunami relief and rehabilitation.  When I mentioned to him that we are helping appoint additional teachers in government schools which had only one teacher and were providing teaching learning materials to several schools, he said “But these were not there even before the Tsunami.  How was it affected by the Tsunami? Donors have given money only to put back what was lost during the Tsunami.”

Following this logic to its conclusion will lead to the following absurdities!

• Even before the Tsunami lots of children were malnourished.  We should therefore provide them just the right amount of food to maintain them at the same level of malnutrition. We shouldn’t try to improve the overall nutrition status.

• There were lots of people with health problems in the village even earlier (like the child from Nagai with a heart problem) – in our health camps we should only address the health problems caused by the Tsunami.

• We should reconstruct broken down schools, but we should not put furniture in as most schools never had any furniture.  It is okay to spend several lakhs on the new building. But we should not pay a few thousands for putting an additional teacher even if there is only teacher in the school.

• There were no teaching-learning materials earlier and lots of kids were not able to read or write even earlier – so we should not try to improve the quality of education in the schools or organize after school support for children.

• There were lots of small businesses that were failing even before the Tsunami destroyed them. We should put back the business to the pre-Tsunami level but not go the extra mile to help it succeed.