One Year Later

I have posted a couple of photos, taken this morning off the Colombo coast. The sea was calm and blue. Hard to imagine that one year ago that same sea wiped entire villages off the map and caused so many people to die and destroyed so many families. Nonetheless, life goes on and progress is being made. Today is a day of reliving the events and agonies of one year ago - tradition has it that life will go "back to normal" after this Remembrance Day. That means that people can concentrate on the future having relived that Day again. Now the survivors can put the past events behind... and move on with their lives, in the shadow of what was lost.

It is a quiet day for all of us. The Red Cross offices are closed to allow staff to remember those who perished. A few of us came in to catch up on work after going to memorial services this morning or remembering in one’s own way. It is very quiet throughout Colombo, and from what I hear from colleagues in the districts, all over the Island.

I am optimistic.

This year, the Red Cross did not compromise on the basic principles that drive our work – consultation with those affected, supporting and respecting national and local solutions and being sensitive to risks of conflict and inequity between survivors and others who live in poverty in the countryside.

People from the Sri Lanka Red Cross and our partner national groups have been present in every affected district since the day the tsunami struck and we will be working with affected communities to recover from the disaster for as long as it takes to get the job done.

We spent the first three months meeting the emergency and transitional needs of the affected population. Then is seemed like forever while we figured out the next steps and now houses are going up, money is being disbursed, workers are being trained in new livelihoods and scores of other programs that are helping people recover are being conducted.

Of course, there are still on-going emergency needs that the Red Cross continues to meet. For instance our local Branches are providing relief items to people in temporary camps and, get this - over 3 million liters of clean water are being produced (purified) and delivered each week to communities and camps in 5 Districts.

Anyway, I do not have the energy to go into a lot of details today. I just want to be quite and reflect on what has happened over the last year, and keep myself up so I can do my part for another one.

P.S. Check out the Op-Ed from the San Diego Union Tribune on the side bar ->.
(Thanks Gayle for getting that placed.)

P.P.S. There is also a link to a KPBS - San Diego radio interview on the Tsunami