Flood relief work: Still a long way to go

By Fathima Riznaz Hafi

Since the devastating floods that hit the island recently leaving many people displaced, various groups and individuals have been coming forward to help – be it in the form of manpower, money, food, clothing or shelter.

The Daily FT enquiring about the present situation in terms of relief and how much more is needed spoke to The Voice Foundation, which has been working round the clock to provide relief to the flood victims. 

The people heading the foundation – Bethany Church Rajagiriya Senior Pastor Dishan de Silva, Touch Community Director Sonali de Silva and Voice Coordinator Moses Akash – revealed that they are approaching the situation in a holistic manner.

“We are looking at all angles: What we need to do at the moment (food and other provisions), the cleaning up as the water dries up later and after all this is over, the rebuilding of lives,” said Pastor Dishan.

They began their work last Monday night and up to now have over 500 volunteers who found out about their work through their FB page and website. As of now they have helped 15,000 people, 3,800 families, providing dry rations, clothes, medicine and sanitary items and even rescuing people. They have been collaborating with the Sri Lankan Navy and the Air Force. 

“Mostly what we do is ‘reach the unreached’. The schools get a lot of stuff but there’s this community who hasn’t got anything – people in the rural and interior areas – nobody knows about them. A lot of calls we get are about them. When we get the calls, we analyse what they need and pack the dry rations, clothes, bed sheets, pillows, etc. and send our volunteers with one of our representatives. We go there personally and make sure its goes to the right people – we don’t just give it to somebody and ask them to give it – that’s how we do it. One of our main concerns is that these things go to the wrong people so we don’t let that happen,” said Moses. 

Then there are people who have moved in with relatives and friends. They may be safe but they too have lost their belongings and what about the people who have taken them in and the burden on them? Some of them are too shy to ask for help because they are not poor people but do need help now. Voice gets calls from them too and takes care of them as well.

“It’s not just one community that we have reached – we have gone to temples, mosques and sent dry rations all the way to Chilaw,” he added.  

Holistic approach

Reiterating Pastor Dishan’s thoughts on a holistic approach, Moses elaborates how they plan to work through three phases in tackling the situation. The first phase is ‘immediate relief’, which is what they are doing at present, by going to the location and distributing the essential items. “Even if it’s for two families we would still go,” Moses asserted.

The second phase is ‘cleaning and helping to rebuild damaged houses’. The third phase is ‘post-relief work’ where they look at their livelihood and are more concerned about helping them get back on their feet so they can re-start their lives.

“As of now many people have lost everything. So we want to help them in every possible way. We will look at their basic needs, we will try to raise funds for the children so they can go back to school, provide uniform material, etc. So it’s basically a holistic approach from zero up to everything,” he explained.

Who is helping?

When asked who is coming forward to assist them, Sonali said that it’s mostly individuals but a few organisations have also come forward. The number of volunteers has also been increasing. The entire hall was busy with volunteers in different sections sorting out goods. The goods kept coming in as we spoke.

MDF Asia had donated mops, buckets and other items to help with the clean-up and this arrived shortly before we visited. Children’s Hope, LSL Adventure Tours, Chavy International and Wizcraft have also generously helped, she said.

“There’s a Facebook page called ‘Ex Pats Furniture Group’ and they have given us the green-light to do any kind of fund-raising on their page. In fact some of them are here today,” Moses said, pointing out the volunteers sorting out and packing dry rations.

“We are getting a US Marine team to come help us as well. Many foreigners are helping us. Voice has gone international and now many people are raising funds and want to collaborate with us for post-relief work. People have come to trust us because of our clarity and transparency. We have seen a lot of funds come and nobody knows where they go but we don’t let that happen because here we let the donors come down and see what we’re doing and even join us with the distribution and relief work. The last few days they went out and did the distribution with us,” he added. 

“In most of the cases, people give funds to unknown people to do the distribution – those people don’t know where to find the victims and who the deserving people are. The stuff doesn’t reach the far ends and instead ends up elsewhere. Sometimes other people claim it. That’s why we prefer to give it in person to make sure that it goes to the right people. We don’t give the distribution work to strangers. We don’t even give the supplies to the Grama Sevaka. It’s not that we don’t trust – we just want to make sure it goes to the right person. That’s where the hard part is; we have to go to the interior parts; at times we would see dead dogs floating on the water and we had to go through that water walking by the dead dogs. Such is the situation!” he said.

Volunteers

For the past week the volunteers have been working with Voice from around 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., sometimes 48 hours. Both the young and the old – even kids are helping. “Around 20-30 people have been working continuously for the past seven days. We get calls at night asking for food or rescue, so our work is basically going 24/7,” he said.

“It’s very reassuring to see so many people showing kindness and generosity especially at a time when it’s badly needed. It gives hope that there are kind people around us. Voice is able to do what we do because of these groups. Collectively we can make a difference. Rather than helping individually, as a group we can achieve much more,” Pastor Dishan said.

“For a day almost five to seven teams go to different locations; sometimes they go twice or thrice. Through all the adversity the positive message we can send is: There are some people who in all of this, sacrifice so much for other people and we see hope as there is kindness.”

Voice still needs more volunteers because although there are many who work all day, there are also some who work for two to three hours and leave; they need the flow to be continuous and are calling out for more volunteers.

“So many people help within their ‘comfort zone’, not going out of their way to help others. We have so many volunteers here who have been working continuously from the start and they haven’t gone to work and then we also see people who want to help but don’t want to step out of their comfort zone. We need to change that mentality and create better Sri Lankans for a better Sri Lanka,” he added. 

“A lot of people are asking us why we do what we do and I say ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. This is a thought we try to share with everyone. We never know what would inflict us and it is at a time like this that we all need each other.” 

Transport

All the transportation is provided by Voice volunteers – they carry out the distribution with their own vehicles and have worked 48 hours at a stretch and did rescue missions as well. Some of the vehicles have been damaged because they were not meant to go in water.

“We bought a boat – the first vehicle that Voice owns is a boat! It’s a small inflatable dinghy boat because there are some places we can’t go to with a big boat and motor. So we have to paddle, take the dry rations in the boat, drop off the goods, distribute them and take the people back with us,” said Moses. “We take seven hours to rescue 20 people because it’s a small boat! Only three fit in a boat so we had to go about 20-30 rides at a time. We stack the food and dry rations in the boat while we walk through the water because we can’t carry it while walking in water.”

Present situation: People still stuck, help is diminishing 

In some places things have gone back to normal and children are back in school while in some places houses are still under water. Voice still gets calls for rescue missions; even at night. People are still stuck and are waiting for assistance. Though the initial outcome was good, with trucks full of goods everyday, the enthusiasm seems to be fading away slowly.

“People are going back to work and the spirit we had at first is missing – we are finding it hard to get vehicles. I’m not saying they don’t want to help but they’re going back to their own lives,” Moses said. 

The supplies that were provided to the victims are depleting and more is needed. 

There is still more work to be done; more volunteers, dry rations and clothes are needed. As for the people who have gone back to their homes, they need help with supplies to clean up and some have to rebuild their lives from scratch. 

“It takes time to rebuild and bring them back to where they once were. We are trying to help people re-start their business, children to get back to school and we also plan to help re-build damaged homes. So it doesn’t end here! We need people to volunteer for all this work as well,” Sonali said.

Pix by Lasantha Kumara