Chandra
Mathi is heaving piles of rubble to clear away the remains of
a house destroyed by the 26 December tsunami.
It is well over 30°C in the midday sun, but the heat doesn’t
deter this 29-year-old mother of three and the other nine men
and women working with her. They are a part of the Sri Lanka
Red Cross clean-up operation that is bringing some semblance
of order to the country’s devastated coastline.
The clean-up is an essential preparatory activity for the Sri
Lanka Red Cross recovery programme, which is focusing on building
15,000 houses for displaced families and rehabilitating over
30 health facilities in affected areas.
“We have 450 people working in Galle in our clean-up operation,”
says Mr Lokku, the Sri Lanka Red Cross coordinator of the clean-up
programme in Galle. “We give the workers a daily salary,
lunch and water. People are happy to do the job,” he says.
The Sri Lanka Red Cross operation in the southern district of
Galle is being supported by the US Agency for International
Development, USAID, as it is in Ampara district in the east.
The National Society is also running clean-up activities in
the south with the support of the British and Spanish Red Cross
Societies.
The teams of ten people, each supervised by a Red Cross volunteer,
work methodically. Bricks and tiles are placed to one side for
re-use; bits and pieces of what was someone’s home are
sifted through and the junk thrown to one side to be transported
away.
Chandra lost her husband and like many tsunami widows, is particularly
vulnerable.
The income from working on the clean-up operation helps her
support her family. Mr Lokku says the Sri Lanka Red Cross is
aware of the need to empower people like Chandra and the National
Society has an equal opportunity policy to ensure women get
a fair chance at employment.
“We try to make sure that 50 per cent of our employees
are women. That way everyone gets a fair chance of employment.
It is more difficult to get work for women, many of whom have
lost husbands and relatives,” he says.
The work with the Sri Lanka Red Cross is not only a source of
income, but acts as a psychological boost for people affected
by the disaster. It gives them ownership of the rehabilitation
process and an immediate focus as they rebuild their lives.
Sri Lanka Red Cross volunteer Priyanthi Athukoralla working
with the Belgian Red Cross in Kalutara on a programme that focuses
on improving the psychological well-being of local communities
says the clean-up operation has other benefits.
“During the cleaning we have a golden opportunity to be
with people, get to know them well and let them know that they
are not alone”, she says.
The clean-up operation is only a temporary solution to unemployment
and a small step towards healing the psychological scars. But
it is mobilising communities to support themselves and hopefully
laying the path for a return to sense of normality among devastated
communities.
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Chandra
Mathi, is part of the Sri Lanka Red Cross clean-up operation
which is bringing some sense of order to the devastated
coastline (p12836)
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Mr
Lokku, the SLRCS clean-up coordinator, manages the 450
people working in Galle (p12837)
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