[atp-news] ACCORD hilft Tsunami-Opfern in Tamil Nadu - Spendenaufruf

adivasi-tee-projekt.org_thorsten.nilges at jpberlin.de adivasi-tee-projekt.org_thorsten.nilges at jpberlin.de
Don Jan 6 13:00:24 CET 2005


Liebe FreundInnen und Freunde des Adivasi-Tee-Projektes,



anbei zwei Mails aus Indien, damit Sie sich in etwa vorstellen können,
wofür die Menschen an der indischen Küste unsere Hilfe benötigen.



Herzliche Grüße



Thorsten Nilges


Adivasi-Tee-Projekt
c/o Thorsten Nilges
Bahlenstrasse 130
40589 Duesseldorf
0211/7598375
0163/4785250
thorsten.nilges at adivasi-tee-projekt.org
www.adivasi-tee-projekt.org




-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Stan Thekaekara [mailto:stan at gudalur.com]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 30. Dezember 2004 21:10
An: 'thorstennilges'
Cc: 'Manoharan'
Betreff: RE: Appeal for help

Dear Anja and Thorsten

IT is really good of you to respond so promptly. We appreciate all the
help and support.

THe situation is really bad. We have been tryig to offer as much support
as we can to our friends there. Manoharan is leaving today to help them
set up some systems and a website and so on.

I am attaching a letter from Vivekanandan from SIFFS to give you some idea
of what is happening.

Love to all
Stan



Dear Friends,
I just returned after a couple of days providing support to relief
operations in Kanyakumari District that is reeling from the aftermath of
the tsunami. I shall try to share some of my thoughts and ideas on this.
First, let me respond to members who have shown interest in supporting
relief work. Our organisation South Indian Federation of Fishermen
Societies (SIFFS) is currently involved in serious relief work in two
districts of Tamil Nadu: Kanyakumari and Nagapatinam. We also have one
staff member working on relief activities in Madras. A token relief
activity is also taking place through our regional office in Kakinada,
Andhra Pradesh.
Nagapatinam is the worst affected district on the mainland from point of
view of casualities (the toll in Andamans is certainly the highest and
perhaps a final figure will never be arrived at). The final death toll in
Nagapatinam is still difficult to anticipate and current estimates put it
around 5,000. Our team is currently in Tarangambadi and struggling with
removal of dead bodies that are still stuck in various ackward places. It
seems that removal of dead bodies from the debris and other locations is
not easy and our team says it need soldiers or para military forces to be
deployed to do this and local volunteers are unsuited for the work. At
least in Tarangambadi food and clothings are not a problem and this being
taken care by local Rotary and Lions clubs and individual
philanthrophists. However, there is very little evidence of the Government
anywhere. Local pubic are responding magnificiently every where but the
officials seem to be in deep slumber every where.
The entire administration is yet to gear up and all we have are well
publicised VIP visits to select locations. We are trying to set up a
control room in Nagapatinam or Karaikal to coordinate the help from
various voluntary groups from Madras and elsewhere.
In Kanyakumari, the death toll is between 1500-2000. Around 900 deaths are
from Colachel alone. Around 7000 houses have been destroyed or damaged. At
the moment 30,000 fisherfolk are housed in 40 camps in the southern parts
of the district. The casualities start at Cape Comorin and end at around
Kurumbanai, a couple of kilometers to the north of Colachel. (Further
north, there are no casualities but there is loss of boats till the
Thengapattinam river mouth. Further north, the tsunami did not do any
significant damage till Alapad in Karunagapally area.) Interestingly,
almost all the camps are "private" ones and not set up by the Government
or local bodies. The high density of churches in Kanyakumari (let us not
forget that it is the only Christian majority district in South India) has
been a great boon. Many churches in the interior, a few kilometers from
the coast, have become camps. The local people in each camp area have
contributed in cash and kind to the feeding and clothing of the affected
fisherfolk. This has made emergency relief entirely a local affair and the
Government seems to have had very little role. The RDO visited the camps
on Day 2 (Monday) promising food supplies. However, food packets were
haphazardly distributed and poorly timed. Most camps declined to accept
the food packets and prefered to prepare their own food. Only today, I
believe, some camps have recieved rice and some food stuffs.
Meanwhile a NGO network to coordinate relief in Kanyakumari district has
been formed and each of us have selected a number of camps to support.
Our organisation has picked up 15 camps which house nearly 50% of the
refugees in view of some of the larger camps being alloted to us for
support. Rather than discourage local philanthrophy, we only plan to
supplement what locals and the Government are providing. Of course, if the
camps last a few more days, the locals may not be able to sustain them and
we may have to increase our support.
The fantastic response of the local communities is heart warming. The
first groups to help in rescue and retrieval of dead bodies were Hindu and
Muslim youth associations. If you keep in mind that all the affected
fisherfolk are Christian, this shows how religious differences are
unnecessarily played up at other times. Even though camps are mostly in
Churches, the help is coming from all quarters including Muslims and
Hindus. One camp I visited is sustained by generous help from non resident
Indians while another is sustained entirely by contributions from poor
workers who have stopped going to work only to help the affected
population. So support is cuts across the class barrier also.
Natural calamities seem to help us shed our differences and unite without
reservations.
Finally, if some of you wish to contribute to a non governmental relief
initiative, you are welcome pass on your contributions to SIFFS. Cheques
can be made in the name of "SIFFS" and sent to: SIFFS, Karamana,
Trivandrum 695 002. We shall be using the funds for both emergency relief
and rehabilitation that follows after that. The rehab is the biggest
challenge facing us as restoration of the livelihood will be very
difficult needing enourmous financial resources resources.
Restoration of housing is not enough, restoration of fishing equipment is
essential.
I shall write in a separate mail about the interesting information I
recieved from fishermen on the tsunami.
Vivek