Personally, both Sadna and I have taken much real world experience from this trip and left behind a bit of naive theory on how successful relief work is done on the ground. Each type of contribution has it’s place depending on what stage a crisis is in. For example, donating money directly is helpful during a certain period, but if done wrong it can quickly create dependency on outside money, and people will eventually lose interest in pursuing work. Organizations that help get people back to work or look for buy-in from a town before going forward with a large community project sound like common sense, but it’s surprising how many outside groups still look to impose their own belief systems and solutions without doing homework on cultural differences and local politics.

For RCI, the recommendation given by Jim Jarvie of Mercy Corp was to find a group that is already entrenched here doing something well and add your expertise to make it even better. In a political climate this volatile, it is better to concentrate on the ‘process’ than on leaving a ‘footprint’. For example, a group may have more success teaching contractors about sounder building methods than trying to wrestle with half a dozen government organizations on initiating the development of a new housing project from the ground up.

We regrouped in Colombo this weekend to purchase children’s clothes and hold a meeting with the Director of Program Development for Mercy Corp. I would say this was the most enlightening meeting so far on rebuilding efforts in Sri Lanka…I hope to write more on this later as it relates to the inner workings of relief organizations and in the case of Sri Lanka, the effect of government politics. The parallels of how the US government is handling Katrina come to mind: http://www.mirror.co.uk

As a sign of what’s to come, our driver caught the attention of a woman working for the German Development Cooperation whose project is data basing all the project information of over 40 relief agencies working in the South of Sri Lanka. This way overlap can be reined and one should hear less stories about a fishermen receiving 3 boats and 20 mosquito nets, for example. Another part of this work is to identify ‘beneficiaries’ or people that have already received the aid they need. The AG couldn’t provide her any assistance with this, although it is the responsibility of this office to do so.

Subsistence and sustainable redevelopment is a recurring theme but different groups and different individuals have strongly differing opinions on how to get there. There is consensus on one point for the most part. Individuals and organizations MUST do what they can, with the time and resources at their disposal, and it must be done with thoughtfulness and a sensitivity to donors and to the beneficiary community.

There are people from all walks of life suffering from the Tsunami and people from all walks of life benefiting from it as well. There are some areas saturated with NGO presence and some areas completely left behind.

Nothing is ever black and white here, but a thousand shades of grey - a spectrum of emotions, approaches, levels of poverty, wealth and intentions.

Each organization had expertise in specific areas and all were very helpful in providing us information. As examples of what they do, The World Conservation Union assesses the environmental & wildlife impact of the tsunami, The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka is working directly with small to medium sized businesses providing fishing nets, sewing machines, building materials, etc., while Oxfam is working on long term quality reconstruction of housing.