ADRA : Adventist Development & Relief Agency International

We are at SMP4 Junior High School, and 545 students are lined up in the school yard listening to speeches from ADRA, a representative of the district education department, and their headmaster, Mr. Zainun Zakaria.

The headmaster delivers a powerful motivational speech to his students, urging them to be strong. They are survivors and should not let the tsunami ruin their lives. They need to look forward and rebuild their future through education. He reminds them of the two bombs that destroyed Japan at the end of World War II. The students should look to the Japanese to see how successfully they rebuilt their country after their disaster. It was through education and determination that Japan rebuilt a strong economy.

He wants his students to get on with life. He believes that through school the children can return to some sort of normality in the midst of personal tragedy. They have this opportunity because of the work ADRA is doing in his school. He expresses his gratefulness for the many NGOs and in particular ADRA. He urges his students to learn from ADRA and the other NGOs that have come from the other side of the world. He tells them that they are important. The world cares about them and their future. In return, they must do well in school and rebuild their lives.

These are strong words for children who have recently survived earthquakes and a tsunami. After the formalities, the children receive their new bags. I catch up with Mr. Zakaria. He shares that he has worked 34 years as the headmaster of this school. He pulls up his trousers to show me the marks, scars, and discoloration on his legs. “Tsunami—tsunami,” he proclaims. I quickly get a translator so I can understand what he wants to tell me.

On December 26, 2004, Mr. Zakaria had attended teacher training at the school and was on his way home. As he got to the bridge in town, the earth shook. He quickly jumped out of his car and lay on the ground, holding his arms around his head. When the large earthquake stopped, he hurried back to his house to make sure his wife and daughter were fine. Confirming that his family was all right, he went to the mosque to gather information and see if someone needed help. Not many people were in the mosque, so he returned home. On the way, he met people screaming about the rising water levels.

He ran to find his daughter and tell her to go to her grandmother, who lived farther down the coast. The daughter, like any teenager, wanted to change her clothes and pack a bag. Both Mr. Zakaria and his wife urged her to leave on her motorbike. Finally, she obeyed her parents and drove off. His wife ran over to the neighbor’s two-story house, bringing a small bag of documents. Mr. Zakaria watched his family leave. The water level was rising; by now it had reached the side of his house.

He got on a motorcycle and tried to drive off, but the bike stalled because the water level was too high. Everything happened so fast. Suddenly he found the water carrying him away. He tried to grab hold of something, anything. He grabbed on to a jeep. The car was tossed around, and he was back in the water. Struggling, he tried to grab hold of a building, but the current was too powerful and he was swept away. After an hour of struggling, he was finally able to grab the roots of a Beringin tree. As he pulled himself up onto the tree, he found that he was not alone. Also clinging to the Beringin tree were a civet with three of her kittens, two mice, and a chicken.

For hours, they clung to the tree, not seeing any other living being. The water was filled with dead people. It was pulling back to the sea at a stronger and faster pace than it had come in. All Mr. Zakaria could do was sit and wait. The sun was scorching hot and burning him, but he thought only of his wife and daughter. Where were they? What was happening to them?

After four hours, he decided to try to reach a patch of dry land that he saw in the distance. He removed his shirt and trousers. He tied his trousers around his waist and his shirt around his head. He knew that his clothes would slow him down. He estimated that it would take about 15 minutes to swim to land, but the current was strong and he was weak. He swam from branch to branch. He found a board and pushed it ahead a bit and then swam to it. While he was trying to swim, he was afraid that another wave would come.

 At some point, he realized that he had lost his clothes. He felt pain in his leg and saw that it was cut in many places. Finally, after an hour and a half, his feet touched dry land. Mr. Zakaria was tired and worn-out, but determined to find out what had happened to his family. He staggered to his relative’s house, which was situated in an area that was unaffected. There he was able to rest for some time and eat some food. His thoughts were with his daughter and his wife. He was particularly concerned for his daughter; had she done as he had told her? If so, he knew that there was little chance that she had survived, as her grandmother’s house was close to the waterfront.

Regaining some strength, he started his search. He walked around the city and saw destruction and dead people. He ended up at the mosque, and there he finally met his daughter and wife. It was around 4:00 p.m.; he had seen them last at 8:30 a.m. For once, he was glad that his daughter had done what she thought was best and had not followed his directions. Had she obeyed him, she would not be alive.

Mr. Zakaria still smiles; he knows that he is lucky and is grateful that his family is safe. All the material positions they have are the daughter’s motorbike and the small bag his wife took. However, this is not important; they have each other.

After hearing his story, I understand that his strong speech to his students was not out of insensitivity to the children’s experience, but out of care and to motivate them to continue life. Seeing the work ADRA is doing to rehabilitate the children’s school and give them back a future, I too smile with Mr. Zakaria and promise that ADRA will not forget him or his school.

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The enormous force of the Tsunami left nothing of Qulule village but this deserted strip of sand.

Qulule village took a direct hit from the Asian Tsunami on December 26, 2004. After the water receded, the devastated villagers struggled to come to terms with the calamity and fought for a breath of fresh air amidst the stench of death and destruction. They had no choice but to leave everything to God. As I walked through what remained of the village, I stepped gingerly through the remnants of domestic life littering the beach—endless piles of kerosene lanterns, furniture, and kettles—my footprints trailing through the dark, circular, ashy patches marking where the villagers once cooked their meals.

Prodded along by my curiosity, I explored further, digging deeper into the scattered remains of Qulule. I climbed to the headland, observing that the village had once stood only 20 meters from the high tide line in the mouth of a beautiful gorge. Thus situated, when the tsunami struck, Qulule had been literally erased away, its forty-odd temporary dwellings swept into the sea. Only a solitary cement-block structure, sheltered under a rock ledge, remained standing.

The enormous force of the Tsunami left nothing of Qulule village but this deserted strip of sand.

As the Qulule villagers shared their tsunami experiences, I listened intently, pained by their tales of survival and loss. Their oceanfront homes washed away, they had no choice but to move under rock ledges and caves. The inviting landscape they so loved was now foreign and hostile, the white sandy beach uninviting. But where else could they live? Perhaps the headland—on the cliffs high above the beach—but up there the only access to fresh water was in the deep gorge a lengthy and treacherous hike away. Besides, a villager could normally carry only a 5-liter can of water at a time. For this reason, along with the threat of flash floods through the gorge, the villagers preferred to stay near the water source at the beach. Yes, the headland was a challenging option. The villagers assured me, however, that they would move to higher ground if the gorge water could be accessed more easily. I knew ADRA was well equipped to make this happen, and as I left the village I assured my friends we would return to build a waterworks in the gorge.

In October 2005, anxious to see how my friends had fared over the last year, I returned to Qulule with an ADRA project team in tow. I was surprised and pleased to see a new village perching on the cliff top! The villagers had kept their promise of settling there, even though the waterworks had not yet been constructed.

The ADRA team eagerly set about surveying the land and discussing the technical requirements and logistics of building the much-anticipated waterworks. After all, Qulule had been waiting almost a year for this, and the villagers were growing skeptical they would ever have easy access to the gorge’s spring water. As the villagers observed the work under way, doubt gave way to the hope and promise of renewed life. By February 2006, designs had been finalized and work had begun. The project is progressing steadily, and the waterworks should be completed and functioning by the end of May 2006.

I witnessed firsthand the faith, courage, and resiliency of Qulule’s people. Left with nothing in the wake of the tsunami’s destruction, they relied on God to “swat away the flies.” Now, in anticipation of the new, convenient, and safe water source, Qulule is once again vibrant and growing.

Qulule is just one of the water-hungry Somali villages ADRA has helped by constructing waterworks. ADRA is actively implementing or supervising numerous other waterworks projects in the region.

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Well, yes. But ADRA has a God given opportunity to advocate at the highest levels on behalf of our beneficiaries, the various constituencies that we represent. How can we reject this task when it serves to complement the work that we do to implement projects?

NGOs such as ADRA typically do some level of advocacy to leverage their influence over decision-makers and policy-makers to create policy, change policy, or continue policy that ultimately aims to alleviate poverty. The new orthodoxy of development advocacy recognizes that the daily work of helping people to identify and meet their needs must be carried out in conjunction with policy changes at community, national, and international levels. Advocacy must be local as well as international.

In the past decade, there has been an increase in the level of participation and influence that NGOs have at the UN. Although NGOs have participated to some extent in deliberations at the UN since that body’s inception in 1945, it was not until the end of the Cold War and a series of global conferences throughout the 1990s that NGOs sought to engage directly in intergovernmental deliberations and, through advocacy and mobilization of constituencies, influence their outcomes. Simultaneously, indigenous NGOs demanded a seat at the table, and traditional international NGOs had to adapt to better serve constituencies in developing countries. Today, an unprecedented number and variety of civil society and business-related organizations participate in the work of the UN system.

ADRA’s involvement with the UN began in 1997 when it was granted what is known as “general consultative status.” NGOs are granted the privilege of participating in a wide variety of UN sponsored meetings and activities. In return, they are expected to contribute in some way to furthering the development aims of the Economic and Social Council and the UN at large. In the field, ADRA coordinates and at times partners directly with various UN agencies in developing countries, to provide services such as food aid, relief, medicine, and schoolbooks. For example, in Sudan, Ghana, and Zambia, ADRA is part of a national country coordinating mechanism that receives funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. ADRA also receives funding from UNICEF and the UNHCR to implement programs in a variety of developing countries, such as Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Indirectly, ADRA’s community-based programs support country-specific goals of UN agencies at the field level.

In addition, ADRA participates in the UN’s international conferences, special events, consultation processes, and workshops related to development and relief. At these meetings, ADRA joins UN issues caucuses to ensure that its constituents in developing countries are represented before the UN in statements and position papers. ADRA networks with representatives from the countries that make up the membership of the UN, and advocates for policy change on certain issues.

I am always happy to share with others what ADRA is doing in partnership with the international community. It complements what we do every day in our humanitarian work, whatever position we may hold across the ADRA network. In addition to my voice at New York and Geneva, I need your voice at the UN missions in your country.

This was made possible by everyday people who have selflessy given resources to help keep Kashmiris alive this winter. 
People from:  Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Czech Republic, United States, Norway, Slovakia, Australia, Austria, United Kingdom, Korea, Finland, Portugal, Belgium/Luxembourg, Canada, Denmark, and Japan.

ADRA International has sent $144,000 for shelters, quilts, and stoves, with much more in the pipeline from donations still being received. ADRA’s offices in Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany have sent nearly $200,000 for shelters, quilts, and stoves.
ADRA Turkey gave a donation worth $180,000.  That was the cost for three C-130 cargo planes to deliver 60,000 pounds worth of tents to Pakistan.
 
When several European ADRA donor countries donated the huge tents, promises were made by a certain airline that the tents would be sent free of charge to Pakistan.  It didn’t happen.

So Alex, ADRA’s country director for Turkey, was asked to find an alternative. He immediately trucked the tents from Europe to Turkey arranging free passage on a huge Russian cargo plane. But the tents arrived too late and did not make the flight.
 
A couple of hours later, during a United Nations Joint Logistics Center meeting in Islamabad, our ADRA Pakistan team learned that NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was making their last flight out of Turkey within 36 hours.  Alex personally traveled hundreds of kilometers with the truck drivers, driving non-stop through snowy passes at night, and he got those tents loaded onto three C140 cargo planes in time for NATO’s final free flight. 
 
Tonight those tents are in Bagh.  This week, they will be distributed via trucks and helicopters to villages. About 50 people will sleep in them by night, and about 75 children will study in them by day.
 
Last Friday, I visited a 700-student high school in Bagh where two tents are already in use.  Pakistani students always wear uniforms.  But many of these children were wearing the only change of clothes they have—the ones they were wearing on October 8.
  
More than 100 students from this school died in that 92-second earthquake. Every student in that school has lost at least one close family member.

ADRA is on the frontlines of this disaster. We’re working hard as the snows move in, and we’re committed to helping as many people as possible. Thank you for your kindness and generosity.

Click here to learn how to participate in our efforts.

After building enough trust and rapport, we initiate a conversation with her and encourage her to speak about her experience of the tragedy of December 26, 2004. The very word “tsunami” makes her sigh, and she is in tears, as she lost her daughter and granddaughter on that day.

Arjunadevi, in her late 50s, has been in Thazhznganda village ever since she married an inhabitant of that village. They had two sons and one girl. The girl was the last in line; hence, she was pampered by everyone, and in turn, she was affectionate and kind to everyone in the family. The eldest son is involved in fishing; the youngest is an engineering student.

Her daughter had been highly educated, and even had been working as a teacher. This was unusual, as girls of this village don’t go for higher studies, and no one at all goes for work outside the village. Arjunadevi had the pride that her daughter was the only female in the whole village who had been highly educated.

Arjunadevi adds, “My daughter, Arun Jelitha, aged 27, worked as a teacher; she always had the thirst to study more and more. We spent quite a sum of money for her education. She was a model to this village. On seeing her, many other girls too started going for higher studies. She was so kind toward everyone in the family, even close to her sister-in-law. She took care of her brother’s children so well and bought for them what they liked. She had brought two of her friends to her home during the holidays that December.”

Arjunadevi always gently insists on having a glimpse of her daughter’s photograph, now enlarged and decorated with flowers and lights. She takes us into the house and silently takes a deep look at it, even as we watch her and the image. Confirming that we have had a good look at the graceful person that her daughter was, she starts bringing out the gory story of her daughter’s demise.

“On that fateful day, before anyone could realize that a tidal wave was approaching us, all of us were caught in the tsunami wave,” she explains. “My daughter was just screaming to save her friends who had come for their holidays. She wanted to ensure that, because they were outsiders and guests, no harm should happen to them in the village.

“My daughter-in-law was holding my granddaughter and trying to escape, and I remember only that, because I was struggling in the water. After the wave retreated, we found that our daughter and granddaughter (the one who was in my daughter-in-law’s hands) were missing and later found to be dead. I just could not believe that my daughter was no more. She wanted to study, and we spent a lot for her studies, and now what do I see of it? Though she was 27, she wasn’t married yet; maybe if she had been married, she would have been somewhere else and she would not have died. Only because she was here she has died. As I sit alone at home, I just recall each and every movement of her and the moments she spent with us. I am not able to forget her even for a single second.”

Arjunadevi is a wreck now. Having lost her grown-up daughter in the killer tsunami waves, she has suddenly found her life emptied of all meaning. The world has become a meaningless place all of a sudden.

Her husband has hardly taken responsibility, even during the days before the tsunami consumed her daughter’s life. Now he is even more devastated.

Her house is located not far away from the shores and easily bore the brunt of the tsunami.

Arjunadevi still recalls the fond connection she had with her daughter, remembering her daughter by spelling out each and every activity in which she was engaged when alive.

They had an intense bond with each other, and Arun Jelitha grew up enjoying the intense love of her mother.

Now she is alone, as her truant husband hardly returns home and her sons spend few hours at home. She cooks for herself and for her sons—only one single meal a day. But her desolate and wrecked nature hardly excites her sons to come home. Her relatives come and spend some days with her, but they cannot help beyond that.

The panic level seems to go up every now and then these days, thanks to false warnings from people around her. After the news about the earthquake in Andaman, people were more scared, but such signs did not affect Arjunadevi, as she is no longer scared of death. Indeed, she says that if death would unite her with Arun Jelitha, she would embrace it willingly.

Nowaways, Arjunadevi sleeps little; she hangs around the seashore, wishing to meet her daughter in the form of her spirit. Her belief in the afterlife and ghosts has given her renewed strength as she hopes to meet her daughter one day on the shores of the sea that gobbled her up.

It is very significant that she does not even refer to her daughter without attaching due respect to her. She says that she did that even when Arun Jelitha was alive. They were more like equals than mother and daughter. She remembers her good deeds in the finest detail: how she woke up, how she spoke, how she performed her household chores. She remembers her gait and vividly can reconstruct the details of her returning home as she would appear on the faraway road visible from Arjunadevi’s house.

From what Arjunadevi says, Arun Jelitha was a responsible and loving girl. The entire family and the life of Arjunadevi were anchored around the existence of Arun Jelitha, as she is the one who remarkably completed her Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Education degrees. She became a teacher in a school in the nearby town (Cuddalore) and worked from home after a short stint with hostel life, which her mother discouraged because she could not bear to live separately from her daughter. Life was fine till the tsunami struck the village.

Ever since losing Arun Jelitha, Arjunadevi contemplates suicide and needs to be counseled against it. She says that after her daughter’s demise, there is no point in living her life.

When she found life meaningless in the company of her irresponsible husband, who gets drunk often and returns home after two or three days of inexplicable absence, she found meaning only in raising her daughter and showering intense love on her. This made more sense to her than doing the same with her sons, who grew up working away from home and going fishing.

In this context of meaninglessness, it was her daughter who gave a tremendous sense of meaning and purpose to her life. That’s why she wants to live with Arun Jelitha in her imaginary life, conversing with her to fight her emptiness and relating to her as if she exists in flesh and blood now.

She has not demonstrated any sign of psychological abnormality as she carries out her everyday routine, such as bathing, eating (though very little), cooking, etc. But she needs a lot of support and encouragement.

ADRA’s psychosocial officer is working with her in regular intervals, but that is not enough. We could train or encourage some village volunteers to work with her to bring her back to a certain sense of normalcy, as such volunteers could make daily contact with her.