Don't Lose Sight of Tsunami Survivors, Urges CWS Head

''We can’t afford to turn away from the Indian Ocean and perpetuate the agony of human survival there. We’ll all just have to multi-task.''

By Kenneth Chan, Wednesday, February 02, 2005

As some larger humanitarian agencies report they are winding down their focus and fundraising for emergency response phases to December’s quake-tsunami devastation, "the work that spells real disaster recovery is just beginning," according to global agency Church World Service (CWS).

"This is the stage when everyone¹s attention tends to turn to other emergencies. It’s the stage when governments tend to forget their pledges," warned CWS Executive Director Rev. John L. McCullough who is visiting Indonesia’s tsunami-ravaged Aceh province this week to further shape the agency’s regional long-term recovery programs.

"There’s no question that we have to continue to focus on the rest of the world’s suffering in places like Darfur and Haiti,” McCullough said Tuesday. “But we can’t afford to turn away from the Indian Ocean and perpetuate the agony of human survival there. We’ll all just have to multi-task."

Church World Service, which has to date delivered more than $1.5 million in aid supplies throughout South Asia, reports that it is now developing program plans for the region’s long term recovery needs while teams in Indonesia and Sri Lanka are continuing to deliver immediate emergency aid, food, medical care and shelter supplies. One of the most imminent tasks in Aceh, says McCullough, "is the need for urgent psychosocial or mental health intervention.”

"The trauma in such devastated areas as Aceh has been complex and all-encompassing,” the CWS head stated. “It has integrally affected individuals, families, communities, economies, livelihoods, food security, societal supports and physical environment.”

Maurice Bloem, Country Director for CWS Indonesia, said the approach therefore “must take place over time and calls for a more holistic, community-based solution to trauma recovery."

According to the World Health Organization, up to 10 percent of those who survived the earthquake and tsunami in Aceh could experience serious psychiatric events, such as depression or adjustment disorders, and as many as 50 percent of survivors could develop less severe psychological reactions.

Bloem reported that the CWS medical and mental health team has been traveling Aceh with its mobile clinic, offering immediate person-to-person counseling and group counseling, is establishing community-based support groups and plans training for ongoing help. Taking into account language limitations, the CWS team conducts medical services in mosques or small praying halls or musholahs and travels with a local volunteer translator who speaks Acehnese.

In Banda Aceh, Aceh's provincial capitol city, CWS and local partner Mamamia distributed relief assistance to nearly 6,000 displaced people living with host families and has so far distributed food packages, bottled water, blankets and health kits IMA Medicine Boxes, blankets, and family tents in Montasik sub-districts in Aceh Besar districts. A new shipment of IMA Medicine Boxes, blankets, family tents and biscuits is due to be distributed this week, and 42,000 packaged rice and soy meals will be distributed under close supervision by a nutrition specialist.

In Meulobah, Aceh’s second largest city, and in Rantau Panjang village, Aceh Barat district, CWS reports that it is now installing a water treatment and sanitation project. Once installed, the water purification units—donated by the Norwegian government through CWS partner Norwegian Church Aid (NCA)—will produce enough clean water for approximately 50,000 persons per day, the agency reported.

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, aid workers from CWS Afghanistan/Pakistan’s regional office continue to deliver immediate emergency aid to worst-hit areas and are looking at least two to three years of reconstruction programs. CWS says some reconstruction projects have already begun, working in conjunction with the Sri Lankan government and other local partners.

Currently, the agency is continuing its multi-million fundraising campaign to support long-term recovery programs in worst hit and least served tsunami disaster areas.