IN  FOCUS

Mere handouts are not going to help survivors of the tsunami disaster, especially children for whom the trauma may extend well into their adulthood.

Navalakshmi, 8, draws with fierce concentration, like any other child her age would. But a quick look at Navalakshmi’s drawings makes one realize that she is not like “any other” young girl. The bottom half of her drawing paper is coloured entirely black. Above this black ­ which represents the ocean ­ she has drawn human figures, tree logs and boats, all in red crayon.

Navalakshmi’s drawings are usually over in five minutes ­ all have disembodied figures sticking out of the ocean and shattered boats drawn in one dark colour ­ red.

“She’s prolific,” says Susie Melder, a British social worker who is working with Navalakshmi and several other children from the village of Pandirippu, Ampara district, on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka. Melder is attached to a local NGO, ‘Healing Hands’, which is helping children recover from the 2004 tsunami.

Almost four months after the tsunami, Sri Lanka is nowhere near recovery.

While surviving adults focus on restoring their livelihoods, rebuilding homes and getting the aid promised to them, most of the children are left to themselves to handle their pain and trauma. A few concerned organizations have realized the urgent need for specialized care to help children overcome their trauma and psychological scars, but there are too many affected children and too few resources.

Navalakshmi lost her mother and two younger siblings when the tsunami struck Sri Lanka on December 26, 2004. Navalakshmi, her father, S Krishnamurthy and her 73-year-old paternal-grandmother (after whom Navalakshmi is named), are the only survivors of an extended family of nine adults and five children.

Krishnamurthy’s fishing boat and nets were destroyed, leaving the family with no means of income.

The family now lives in a welfare camp in a Hindu temple close to their former home. The house, where Navalakshmi was born and lived for eight years has been destroyed. Her father now works as a manual labour.

Navalakshmi’s school was also damaged by the tsunami and has now been abandoned. Some children from the camp now go to another school, about three kilometre away, but Navalakshmi’s family does not have the money to buy her new books and a uniform. So Navalakshmi, along with 24 other children of varying ages, spends her day under the care of volunteers from ‘Healing Hands’.

Melder leads this team of six volunteers, four of whom are foreigners who were moved by the plight of the child survivors and raised funds to travel to Sri Lanka and work here. ‘Healing Hands’ is taking care of about 70 such children. While many go to school, about 25 stay in the camp because their parents can’t afford to send them to school. The camp includes a group of tents, a temple, tin-roofed sheds and small temporary houses made of reclaimed timber and coconut thatch.

“One of the biggest challenges I have faced is the changing composition of my team,” says Melder. “It’s very difficult for the kids when they have to adjust to new people all the time. Children are such creatures of routine, and their most urgent need is a return to normal life. The kids desperately need help. They have been traumatized by the sheer magnitude of the disaster and the subsequent upheaval in their lives. Many children at the temple show classic signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, with withdrawal and sudden bursts of anger being the most common.

As a full-time social worker with over two decades of experience, Melder is able to guide her team of volunteers into therapeutic activities with the kids. Art therapy is one such activity. Commenting on Navalakshmi’s drawing, Melder says, “Oh my, she is still so angry.” Analyzing the drawing is the easy part, finding ways to help Navalakshmi deal with her anger is the much harder, almost impossible, task. They need a professional to guide them in taking Navalakshmi through the process of healing and closure, to deal with her fear, anger and pain. But the magnitude of the tsunami devastation has meant that the few professionals available are already stretched to their capacity helping someone else, somewhere else.

Before the tsunami, a trip to the beach used to be a favourite pastime of almost every Sri Lankan child ­ but not any more. Beaches, which used to be filled to capacity on weekends, were deserted up to six weeks after the tsunami. In crowded urban cities such as Colombo, some families and children can be seen venturing out to the beach once again. But the picture postcard beaches along the southern coast of Sri Lanka and on the east coast remain deserted.

“The children are scared by any loud noise. They don’t want to read about the sea, to study poems about the sea or fishing, or have anything to do with the sea. They don’t even sit looking out to the sea anymore,” says Vyjanthi Corea, a Sinhala language teacher from Galle, a historical city on the southern coast that was badly hit by the tsunami. “I allow the children to talk as much as they want. I allow them to play, try to get them to do different activities. But I never force them to do anything they don’t want to do.”

However, Nilanthi Tilekeratne, a social worker from the southern city of Matara, is critical of the manner in which most organizations have handled children post-tsunami. “I can’t count the number of times I have been at a welfare camp with my colleagues and we have seen groups of people ­ locals and foreigners ­ who come to the camp to ‘see the children’. They bring old clothes, used toys and sometimes sweets and chocolates. The children are made to line up and they accept these ‘handouts’ from the sudu mahaththayas (white gentlemen) while someone stand close by taking photographs or filming this great event.”

Sometimes the visitors come to do “special activities” with the children ­ the children have to play a game, draw, perform a song or dance for the visitors. “Nobody cares if the activity is suggested during the hottest part of the day when the kids may want to take a nap under a tree. Nobody cares if the children are in the middle of their lunch; or too shy to perform for strangers... everybody sees children as good public relations material. Why are the children always the first to be photographed and used for publicity, but the last to receive any meaningful help?” asks Tilekeratne.

“We have worked with a generation of children traumatized by the military conflict in the north and east. And now, if we don’t do something soon, we will have thousands of children carrying the scars of the tsunami into adulthood,” says Tilekeratne. ­ By arrangement with Women’s Feature Service

Source: GSN, (http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag8.htm)