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Yeah, I understand the need is ongoing. Rather than donate another large amount all at once, I am going to keep donating a smaller amount over a long period of time. It should add up to more in the long run. Sort of a payment plan.
I keep thinking about how things must be over there. I am *so* not surprised that Indonesia was devistated far worse than any other country--between the proximity to the epicenter and the extreme poverty. But in the beginning it was Sri Lanka that we heard about on the news most. It guess just took longer for the news to get out. Either that or the media thought we would care more about Sri Lanka than Indonesia. No offense to the Sri Lankans. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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The difference in the news getting out is that the areas most affected in Indonesia had no survivors left, so no one to pass on the information that so many people died. Entire areas of the country are destroyed. Total annhialation. (Did I even come close to spelling that correctly?)
A friend of mine from church, Michele, is starting up an organization to try to help those who don't know how to deal with the grief. It's callled Befriend Sri Lanka. The general idea is that local volunteers - people who speak the local language, understand the culture, and will not be seen as outsiders - will be trained to listen and befriend the survivors. There isn't time to give them enough training to be therapists, and they won't be therapists. But they will be trained to listen and to refer individuals to professional help when needed. Therapists and other professionals will be flown in from other countries and will train the volunteers. Michele's organization will then provide the money for transportation and lodging to the communities where the help is needed. And hopefully, this will stop most of the suicides and help people learn how to grieve.
I'm the chief writer - writing press releases, brochures, web content, all the rest. I'm also the webmaster, although I'm not designing the actual site - a friend of mine is - but I'm taking care of everything else regarding the website. I'm also the photographer for the organization. I help how I can using the skills I already have.
Tomorrow, Michele and I, along with two other women, are going to some of the villages down the south western coast, visit the headmen, make contacts, assess needs. The other women coming along are Visaka, another friend of ours who is also an actress (she's done lots of teledramas and is in huge demand right now, separate from the tsunami), and Cindy, a woman from Virginia who flew in on Sunday with Volunteers International. All four of us go to the same church (LDS), so that's how we all connected.
We have no content on the website yet. As soon as we do, I'll post the link and info on it.
Also, Michele's daughter, 14 year old Sarah, wrote a song called Missing You that she's dedicated to the survivors of the tsunami. They're working on getting a recording contract to release the song internationally with all her proceeds funding Befriend Sri Lanka. They'll take donations as well. But this is all in the beginning stages. I'll update y'all here when we have things set up.
Tomorrow is going to be a difficult day.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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What a great thing you are doing! It is great that you can be there and be in touch with what is happening, what is needed, and the people who need it.
That makes sense about there being no survivors. And I cannot judge, since, I have not watched enough TV to get a good feel for what the news is portraying, but what little I did see (here in America) in the first few days was mostly about Sri Lanka. I kept thinking, "What about Indonesia? I bet they have been hit so much worse...." It just really made me wonder. I thought maybe we heard so much about Sri Lanka in particular because America has more connections/interest there. But I don't know.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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No, I don't think it's because of the relationship with Sri Lanka that the US has. I don't think the US and Sri Lanka have a great relationship, if you want to know the truth. US bureaucracy rears its ugly head when it comes to aid agencies working towards peace in this country because of the US policy against terrorists. The LTTE is listed as a terrorist organization, and yet they're the ones sitting on the opposite side of the table from the Sri Lankan government negotiating for peace.
In practical terms, this means that any agency for peace that dares to have any information on the LTTE on their websites, in their literature, tries to show the LTTE side of things, tries to negotiate or communicate with the LTTE automatically has funding cut by the US. Generally, when a new bureaucrat takes over. After things are explained to them about how things work here, the funding sometimes comes back, but meanwhile. . .
And Sri Lankans generally speaking don't have much that's good to say about the US even while they all want to live there. They think Americans are spoiled, fat, and lazy. But they want it, too. Go figure.
Point being that I don't see how it can be because of any relationship with the US that caused Sri Lanka to get more coverage than Indonesia. Indonesia is a corrupt country as well, and from what I've been reading, it's supposedly the most corrupt of the lot. I have no idea if that has anything to do with the news not coming out.
Perhaps the government didn't initially want others knowing just how bad it is? And now, it seems that they may perhaps be milking the disaster for all it's worth, getting as much funding as they can. The Sri Lankan government has certainly been accused of that, as have local charitable organizations.
And as a final note, the death toll in Indonesia is now estimated at 220,000, which brings the total dead from the tsunami to over 280,000.
Great. Just great.
And as a side note to the final note. The estimated missing are still at over 40,000, and 23,000 of them are in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka's death toll could reach 62,000.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Paul Harvey noted on today's morning news, that here we are, - five weeks out from when the tsunami happened -- and they just found another 1,000 bodies.Link
This is just so mind-boggling -- it is going to be a very long recovery.
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Besides the near-total annihilation of segments of the coastline, including total cutoff of communications links, there was and still is the problem of the Indonesian government's clampdown on the press in Aceh due to the rebellion. You can't report what's happening when you don't have your reporters and/or news stringers (ie independent reporters) in the region. And you can't report what happened when censors still severely limit access and reportage.
There is the same lack of news from the TamilTiger-controlled area of SriLanka, and from the Indian-controlled Andaman&Nicobar islands.
The latter is (mostly) for humanitarian reasons: The greatest threat isn't the after-effects of the tsunami itself -- apparently tribal lore gave the natives greater survival knowlege inre what to do in the event of tsunamis than that held by recent (less than 600years residence) immigrants -- but rather diseases carried by well-meaning outsiders to which the natives have no immune resistance. Besides, the natives don't want us there, having already learned the hard way that contact with the outside world has negative effects on their health and cultures.
The TamilTigers don't allow a free press to operate in their region even in the best of times. And while the Acehan rebels would like to have the world's eye on their problems, the Indonesian military does not.
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With the Tamil Tigers, it's also complicated by reports that their leader is dead, along with 500 of his top aids, all killed in the tsunami. Independent verification of this has not yet been allowed.
The question is this:
Did they lie about their deaths so that Velupillai can secretly plan and institute another attack?
Or do they not want to admit their leaders are dead because it could mean they lose power against the Sri Lankan government?
What I do find interesting, and also very typical of this country, is that the Tamils limit access to their part of the country, including relief workers and supplies, but at the same time, they continue to complain about the lack of relief workers and supplies. They just don't get it. At all.
The government here is slow. Not much relief work is getting done on a large scale. The government doesn't approve relief supplies coming into the country quickly, nor are they quick to approve of or provide information regarding needed relief work. It's the smaller, cottage industry type of relief efforts that have sprung up all over the island that are doing the majority of the work.
There's a central database - run by the government - for relief organizations, but the local organizations are scared to register on it because they fear that their organizations will receive too much scrutiny and will perhaps be required to give kickbacks to government employees. It also doesn't help that they don't actually advertise the fact that they have such a database.
There's also a central database for volunteers, not accessible over the internet, so you can register yourself as a volunteer. We're trying to tap into this if can to get more volunteers for our project. We have no idea how extensive it is.
I'll post a link and some more info about it as soon as we have our website up. Hopefully, that'll be within the next 24 hours.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I appreciate these sad updates, Quidscribis. The news has(no surprise) pretty much droped the story.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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No offense to the Sri Lankans. ![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
Go figure.
