February 2005
After the Tsunami: Rebuilding Lives
▲Assessment team interviews coastal women.
We are in a position to make a difference because we have been working in Tamil Nadu to strengthen people’s local democratic structures (panchayats) for more than 14 years. Tamil Nadu was India’s hardest hit state. The tsunami took more than 10,000 lives in India and devastated the livelihoods of thousands of coastal villages.
▲Fishing boat destroyed
The Hunger Project is not a specialized relief agency. We empower people to deal with natural disasters as an integral part of people’s village strategy for the sustainable end of hunger. As some of our animators stated during last year’s record floods in Bangladesh — “a flood can take our lives, but it cannot take away our dignity.”
This will be put to the test over the next year, as The Hunger Project works in partnership with the villages of 15 panchayats in one of the most affected districts.
Immediate Assessment |
| The Hunger Project is able to work with India’s enormous diversity because
it implements strategies through an alliance of more than 60 local
organizations. The leader of our work in Tamil Nadu is
Prof. G. Palanithurai, the Rajiv Gandhi Chair of Panchayati Raj at the
Gandhigram Rural Institute — a university established by Mahatma Gandhi, and
the one place Martin Luther King insisted on visiting when he traveled to
India in 1959. Dr. Palanithurai called upon two partner organizations
— Society for Community Organisation and Rural Development, and Sevalaya. He
requested that they go to the affected areas on December 28–29, meet with
the villagers, and begin developing strategies with them both for immediate
relief and long-term rehabilitation. The team visited 50 villages, 12 of
which had been totally wiped out by the tsunami. Dr. Palanithurai joined
them, and held meetings with government officials on
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The government had done an outstanding job mobilizing
emergency relief supplies. However, village leaders and district officials
expressed concern about the longer-term efforts of rebuilding and
rehabilitation, and asked The Hunger Project to take on this responsibility.
In addition, they emphasized the need for a near-term focus on “software
rather than hardware” — namely:
Miraculously, last October Tamil Nadu established panchayat disaster management committees throughout the state. Now, the committee’s capacity building is an urgent need.
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The Link between People’s Empowerment and
Disaster Management |
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For too long, people have separated development planning and disaster management. Year after year, The Hunger Project has demonstrated that the most effective way to deal with disasters is to empower local people before disaster strikes. In 1996, The Hunger Project worked with 120 villages in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to establish a network of locally run health centers serviced by a mobile health team. When floods wreaked havoc in the area in 1998, ours was the only system that was able to ensure that readily available government emergency supplies reached the people. The newspapers carried headlines praising the “miracle van.”
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 ▲Epicenter food bank in Malawi |
 ▲Emergency supplies in Bangladesh |
| In 2002, Malawi was struck by famine, killing thousands by starvation. Not one person died of hunger at the two Hunger Project epicenters, which had diversified their crops and established food banks to ensure grain supplies during emergencies.ensure grain supplies during emergencies. | In mid-2004, Bangladesh and parts of India were hit by the worst floods in 30 years. In Bangladesh, our 42,000 trained volunteer animators ensured that people in the remotest areas had access to food, clean water and dry shelter. Trained women panchayat leaders brought workability to the chaos when the same floods hit India. |
Investing in People’s
Future
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The world has often been inspired to acts of great generosity in the immediate aftermath of disaster. You have the opportunity to connect to our world in a way that is beyond inspiration: an authentic opportunity to stand in true partnership with the people who now must rebuild their lives once the stories fade from the headlines. Fortunately — in this disaster — many news stories have reminded us that the real, hands-on work of relief and rehabilitation can only be done by local people. Yet, they cannot do it alone. None of us do it alone. Some people have the immediate impulse to send food or clothing — sometimes even when that clothing was originally made in the affected country. What we in the developed world have to offer is our cash. Investing our cash is the most effective and noble action we can take. The Hunger Project is able to make a difference in Tamil Nadu because we have invested in the social mobilization and capacity building of the people since 1990. Lives are saved every day because investors like you have funded the innovative, empowering strategies of The Hunger Project — year after year — ensuring that more and more rural communities are able to not only meet their basic needs, but cope with emergencies. If you are not yet investing this year in a way that fully expresses your global citizenry, generosity and vision — a level of investment that reflects your compassion and seriousness of purpose in the face of the tsunami and the silent, daily catastrophe of chronic hunger — please invest today. Call The Hunger Project or visit our Web site: www.thp.org. |
 ▲Workshop to restore people's confidence in Tamil Nadu, India |