Helping Some of the 400,000 Who Lost Jobs to the Tsunami in Sri Lanka
18 March 2005AMPARA, SRI LANKA (18 March 2005) - In this eastern region, the first to be hit by waves as high as 14 meters, the only warning for Ranjene de Silva was a strange noise.
"It was a very big sound, like a devil, and I asked myself, 'What is that sound?' It was like bulldozers."
Seconds later, Ranjene and her family were tossed out of their home by a raging torrent.
Running and stumbling, Ranjene was lucky to escape with her life, along with her son, daughter and a grandchild.
"But I lost everything else," she says, sitting in a corner of a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs). "What am I to do?"
She would like to rely on her grown up children for support, but daughter Chandrika has experience of only menial work and son Sujeevan shrugs when asked what he does.
"All I know," says Ranjene, "is that I don't want to go back. It's like a cemetery and very dangerous."
In another IDP camp at Ampara, Janaka Amaresooriya, 27, his wife and baby girl arrived here from Trincomalee after their home was destroyed by the tsunami. Formerly an ice breaker in a fish factory, Janaka has already found a better paying job loading wood onto trucks.
He says he doesn't much like the job, however, and is open to alternatives.
The tsunami cost an estimated 400,000 jobs in 200,000 families, of which three out of four were already from low-income households.
The Government is also anxious to empty the IDP camps - already down from 700 to roughly half that number - and reduce long-term aid dependency.
"A top priority is to help get back on their feet those who have lost their livelihood," says Alessandro Pio, country director of ADB's Sri Lanka Resident Mission in Colombo.
"Many people, when asked, say that if they have the boats, nets, and other means to earn a living they can take care of reconstruction themselves."
For many tsunami-affected people like Chandrika, Sujeevan or Janaka, ADB is providing livelihood options.
One way is to expand existing livelihood and microfinance projects - since implementing systems are already in place, funds can be put to use rapidly. In addition, ADB is readying $150 million in grants for tsunami-related assistance for Sri Lanka from its new Asian Tsunami Fund.
One project likely to be expanded through a $25 million grant from the fund is the ADB-backed North East Coastal Community Development Project, which offers livelihood opportunities to poor communities in the conflict-affected districts of Ampara, Batticaloa and Trincomalee in the east.
This was targeted at farmers and fishers, whose traditional subsistence had been disrupted by civil conflict.
"Alternative livelihoods include jobs in food processing - fruit or fish, for example - or in eco-tourism by acting as guides or interpreters in local nature tourism sites. Much of the east coast is in pristine condition and ideal for eco-tourism," says Sanath Ranawana, an environment specialist with ADB's South Asia Department.
The original plan was to help over 56,000 families from 225 grama niladhari divisions (a GN division is a local government unit that typically looks after a handful of villages), but the aim now is to increase coverage by another 95 GN divisions.
The project had been about to start when the tsunami struck.
"NGOs are already poised to implement the project," adds Mr. Ranawana.
The project also provides small infrastructure subprojects identified by village communities such as drinking wells, minor roads and culvets, mooring facilities for fishing vessels, and community halls.
Providing microfinance is another effective way of helping people get their lives back and ADB has reallocated US$7 million from an earlier program to make emergency credit available to 14,000 tsunami-affected people.
This project supports micro enterprise loans of up to about $1,000.
"This allows an immediate response to restore livelihoods in affected areas," says Ashok Sharma, an ADB Principal Rural Finance/Microfinance Specialist. "Emergency credit will help them overcome the massive shock experienced as a result of losing their livelihood."
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