With a Centre-State tussle - over whether grants or loans should be given - frustrating disbursal of funds to buy or repair boats, concerns of rehabilitation of fisherfolk are yet to be addressed. Frustration is building up slowly in the community and it may turn belligerent if its needs are not met soon. Public meetings and protests on issues of food security and livelihood in the tsunami affected areas are a daily sight.

The people from the most affected areas are still housed in various relief camps set up along the coast. As such, economic activity has come to a grinding halt and the people have become dependent on official assistance and the 'benevolence' of NGOs. The fisherfolk in the affected areas are without any means of livelihood and the government has made no moves towards restoring their livelihood. The government has not assessed the damage brought about by the tsunami and the laxity of the government has increased the suffering of the displaced people. Adequate compensation has not been provided to the next of kin of those who lost their lives.

Fishing is yet to commence and the chain of allied works also continue to remain crippled with no sight of recovery in the immediate future. Even in normal times, they lead lives of recurrent danger on the unpredictable seas. In recent years, their livelihoods are further threatened by corporatised trawlers and large monopoly purchasers. The restoration of their livelihoods requires not just the distribution of motorized boats and nets, but also positive discrimination to protect the small fisherfolk and their cooperatives, from the onslaught of multinational corporate interests. The fishing boats and equipments should go not just fish owners but also to the workers. The recovery of soft loans should be poured into a social security fund for the fisherfolk. Modern technology should be harnessed for an early warning system, including when fisherfolk are out at sea.

While there can be no denial that the brunt of the tsunami was borne in a major way by the fisherman community in the way of the lives lost and property and livelihood loss, the plight of the marginalized labourers who assist in fishing and fish selling related activities and the landless agricultural labourers is almost invisible and definitely considered as minimal.

For the huge population of agricultural labourers who are also predominantly dalit, the situation is equally worse. It will take years for agricultural operations to commence since cultivable lands all along the coastline require reclamation, which could be done only in phases. While the government is still at the stage of enumeration of salinated land, reality is that the entire crop that was ready for harvest has been totally lost and salination implies that there may not be another crop. There is talk of a rehabilitation package for those whose agricultural lands are affected but this again has as its target group the landowners and not the landless agricultural labourers, leaseholders, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, etc. who are depending on agriculture labour for survival. For this set of affected people, already marginalized, there is no real possibility of livelihood restoration in the near future. While some who received government relief have almost exhausted it, the others are already talking of ways to handle sheer hunger.

Equally negligent has been provision of psychiatric and counselling help. It is being reported that tens of thousands have been subjected to severe traumas owing to the loss of loved ones, homes, livelihoods and control over their lives. The true deficiencies in the handling of the tsunami lies more in rebuilding people's lives by addressing vulnerability of various kinds especially of women and children. Psychiatric assistance to overcome a sense of helplessness, pathological grief, anxiety disorders and other related psychological illness by organising group therapy sessions for children in relief camps, play group sessions, theatrical games paintings for self expression will help a much faster recovery from post trauma stress disorders.

The true deficiencies in the handling of the disaster lie less in hard logistics than in soft areas like better and quicker access to information, better communication between various actors in the relief along with better coordination with division of labour based on their expertise. Also important is involving the affected people - women and men in the design and planning of their future. Disaster management policies, relief agencies and state machineries while focusing on relief and rehabilitation are generally gender blind. We have a wealth of experiences and conceptual abilities to draw from previous such tragedies to develop gender focused conceptual tools for gender friendly disaster mitigation policies that contextualise disaster with a gender perspective on the importance of gender roles, responsibilities and proper conception of what relief means for women.

A major crisis of drinking water sources is also being experienced. Traditional water bodies and water sources in villages are totally unpotable due to sea water entering these water bodies. The social fabric of the earthquake-hit areas has been devastated by the large number of human deaths and injuries. In addition to the immediate suffering caused, it is likely that an equally large number of families have been torn by the death or serious disability of a member (though family-based data are not yet available). This will have long-term consequences on the well-being of other members, particularly widows, single parent children, orphans, and the elderly. Other social impacts of the earthquake include deep insecurity among those who have lost assets, including property, and increased vulnerability among them to poverty. The livelihoods of many families have been disrupted. The loss of lives, and loss of or damage to homes, productive assets, and workplaces, have caused more severe social disruption.

The best evidence of constructive state and civil society collaborations are evident in the field of education. Temporary schools have started in most relief centers, to the great relief of parents and guardians. New textbooks, stationery, uniforms, teaching learning materials, are efficiently being organised. There is sensitive preparation to assist affected children to appear for their secondary board examinations.

The priority now is to focus on people - help them rebuild their lives, livelihoods and homes. The tsunami victims know well that the rest of society may not be able to empathise for too long with the misfortune of the fisherfolk. After coming to terms with the trauma of the devastation, the attention will have to turn to building roofs over their heads, finding the means to support their families, sending their children back to school and providing access to safe drinking water.

Need for an inclusive rehabilitation policy
One serious lack that is being felt is that of an inclusive livelihood rehabilitation policy for those sections of the affected societies who are economically and socially deprived and inevitably are either labourers in fishing industry and agriculture or marginal farmers. That the Dalit and minority communities have been on the margins of receiving relief is an issue that has been accepted by most of the groups overseeing relief distribution in the Nagapattinam district. The media has also highlighted this issue to a great extent. We believe that the rehabilitation process has produced an opportunity for the government to introduce schemes and plans to ensure economic and social upliftment of these marginalized sections of society.

Issues and Areas of Concern

1. Restoration of Livelihood

Long-term rehabilitation and livelihood support measures, announced by the Government, which aroused great expectations among the affected are nowhere in sight. The official machinery is moving at a snail space in that direction.

Provision of livelihood focused support turned out to be the best strategy to speed up the community journey to well being. This is especially so with the fishing communities who are very proud of their self worth and self reliance. Begging for food and other essentials are not part of their culture. They also have a special relationship with the sea, as their mother, as one who "gives and takes away". Therefore, it is very important to enable them to recover their traditional occupation of fishing in providing them all the means and assistance to resume their traditional occupations.

The recent findings of the Joint Assessment Mission (JAM) of the World Bank, the Asian Development and the United Nations have stressed that the December 26, 2004 disaster has "a significant impact on the States' livelihood (about 38% of the total damage and losses impose negative consequences on livelihood) in the coastal environment and local economy." In particular, it provides a measure of the economic impact of the tsunami on the fisheries sector and related livelihood of the coastal communities of the affected States and Pondicherry.

Given the damages to housing and infrastructure, permanent solutions become an immediate priority and require commitment of resources. In this context, the focus has to be on the need for timely phasing out of relief into recovery to be closely associated with the release of "reconstruction packages" for livelihood and productive activities. Since the recovery of livelihood is the function of reconstruction, getting people back to work is key to getting the local economy moving again, into the recovery process.

Local recovery efforts already begun should not be tied to the "lengthy process of approval of international loans and development of all encompassing master plans." An incremental process of local recovery must move parallel to decision making on more strategic issues such as vulnerability reduction, sea protection, relocation of affected or displaced households and restoration of livelihood.

This is the area of work in which the greatest degree of convergence of the best available technical advice is needed. A conventional state programme of soft loans and subsidies by itself will not enable people to revive livelihoods that were critically dependent on a natural environment that has been devastated in barely understood ways by the assault of the tsunami.

2. Shelters and Habitat

Destruction of shelters are the most common sight that shocks every observer. The most immediate need that hits any visitor to the tsunami affected areas is the imperative to rebuild at the earliest the thousands of homes for the homeless. Having one's own home give the victims a sense of having the family back together to start a new life. For women and children being together in their own little private space is a great sense of security and protection after having to live in open space for several months.

The survivors are housed in makeshift houses with tin roof covers, which provide no protection against summer heat that will be followed by monsoon rains. It is being reported in Tamil Nadu that during the recent summer rains in March the floors of the tent roof house were flooded with rain water causing water borne diseases. Besides the summer heat emitted by the tent sheet makes it impossible for the people to stay inside the shed during the day. Many have complained of dehydration, heat stroke and exhaustion. Traditional housing materials like the coconut and palm leaves are cheaper and summer friendly. But the aluminium lobby prevailed over the bureaucracy in taking decisions that favour the aluminium traders, of course such decisions are taken with a price.

Fishermen had expressed concern over attempts to relocate the hamlets in places away from the sea, which would have an adverse impact on their livelihood. A cross-section of fishermen belonging to Odaikuppam in Besantnagar and Pattipulam and Salavaikuppam in Kancheepuram district, who were present, said that attempts were being made to rehabilitate them a long distance from the shore, away from their original locations. A few of them detailed how several families were left out even in the payment of interim relief by the Government and the relief amount given by the Fisheries department for damaged catamarans.

It is considered unlikely that permanent shelters can be built in the immediate future. Participation of the survivors themselves in building temporary as well as permanent shelters for wages with skill training and tools will greatly assist the rehabilitation process faster. The structure should be resistant to earthquake, cyclones and tsunami or at least ensuring minimal damage to life.

The bottomline with the scheme should have some movement towards providing alternate livelihood using locally available resources and local skills that can be managed by the communities themselves. The emphasis should be on to ensuring that local populations are able to design products and effectively market these.

3. Trauma care and counselling

There seems to be need for urgent work in the area of trauma-related care for children and women (and even men, as though they do not openly express their fear). The fear of sea is very severe that women and children refuse to sleep at nights in their villages. While we have noticed a number of groups who are trying to work with children in terms of restoring schools, providing notebooks etc, we find little or no activity/work undertaken with children where they get to address the trauma-related issues. The work with women and men on trauma care and counselling has to also essentially look into the mechanisms of communities coping up with disasters, look into how different communities have coped in times of previous disasters and looking into stories and myths surrounding fisher/Dalit areas near the coasts. There needs to be a shifting away from individual forms of counselling to work with communities at different levels.

4. Child Care Centres

There is need for activities like games and songs, drawing, and theatre activity which look into their fears, discuss about their feelings and helps them cope with to understand and face the future. This then requires people who are sensitive to the needs of children, trained in multi-cultural activities and also have understanding of child psychology. It also means training volunteers within the community who can accompany the children in their journey for longer time. Non-formal education / evening school could be another area where the local community volunteers could be involved.

After the earthquake many children have dropped out of the schools, and even before the earthquake many children were not in the schools. We have already started non-formal education centres in affected villages to support the children in their education and put them back to school. Now these centres will also be started in the other 9 targeted villages in the same temporary sheds which will be used for pre-primary schools. Appropriate learning/teaching methods will be used. Importance will be given for sports and games, through which children will be supported to come out of the trauma which they are through after the earthquake. These children will also be provided supplementary nutrition.

Rehabilitation Programme - Possible Rehabilitation Measures

• Ensure that food relief is extended until livelihoods are restored.
• Implementation of a food for work programme for all affected communities.
• Provision of gratuitous relief for all those unable to participate in the food for work scheme for various reasons like old age and disability.
• Land - based rehabilitation of landless Dalit agricultural labourers.
• Training and creation of employment opportunities for affected communities.
• Creation of assets which can be used to generate livelihood options
• Specification of a Minimum Wage for all the affected Dalit, Minority /Adivasi communities to prevent their exploitation.

Objectives

There are immediate and long-term objectives.

1. Immediate objectives

• Restoring the livelihood of the coastal people by ensuring the distribution of means of livelihood for the most vulnerable sections of the coastal society
• Initiating trauma care with priority to children, women and youth
• Monitoring the activities of the State Governments rehabilitation actions
• Awareness generation among the people on right to information specifically on rehabilitation schemes, status and progress of such schemes
• Legal assistance
• Dissemination of information on all rehabilitation schemes
• Damage assessment study and survey
• Mobilizing people based on the rights of indigenous fisher people
• Documentation and Research
• Initiating towards the construction of homes for all the homeless
• Campaign advocacy and networking

2. Long- term objectives

• Construction of homes for all the homeless especially for the most vulnerable among the tsunami victims
• Training the young women and youth victims of tsunami in leadership skills, community development, native medicine therapy, traditional marine science, counselling, community radio, tsunami alert exercises, linking the people with the schemes of State and Central Government schemes, alternative education, mangrove forest development and conservation, boat and catamaran building and other vocational subjects.
• Developing Self-help women groups, youth groups and other local social structures
• Human rights education among children, women and youths
• Restoring traditional sports, play and music
• Developing a culture of equal rights for women especially joint ownership rights over house and means of livelihood
• Developing de-addiction home to fight alcoholism and drug abuse among youths
• Developing local people's forum to fight for the compensation package of the State and ensuring its responsibility
• Supporting children's education
• Campaigns and actions against the globalization of marine economy in order to protect local coastal economy

Possible areas of intervention

1. Development of agro-forestry and mangrove forests in Tsunami disaster region

• This project for development of agro-forestry and mangrove forests is designed to protect the coastal areas from Tsunami and to link the livelihood of coastal people.
• This project will be conducted in 15 villages in Kanyakumari, Tiruvandrum and Kerala district as a pilot phase in the first year. This project will be implemented with the existing people's organisation like self-help women groups and youth organizations, etc. Environmental awareness programmes for self-help women groups and youth organizations will be conducted.
• Local village level eco-groups will be formed with members of local panchayat, self-help women groups, fish workers union, youths and coordi nators of the implementing organization. This committee will meet every month and will identify plots for nurseries, areas in the village where such plantations can be raised strategically to protect the coast families in charge of maintaining trees and types of trees suitable for the village, etc.
• Local self-help women groups will administer a nursery in each village. In the nursery, valuable plants like cashew nuts, mango, neem, tamarind, casuarinas and coconut will be raised.
• 3 women selected from self-help groups will be appointed. They will be selected based on the following factors - victims of tsunami disaster, low family income, absence of bread winner in the family and number of children in the family, etc.
• 45 women selected in 15 villages will undergo trainings in other forms for a period of 3 weeks.
• 45 families will receive livelihood support in terms of economic assistance.
• In the second year, this program will be expanded into first phase after the completion of pilot phase.
• Village level ecological committees will undertake plantations of individual trees in streets and coastal areas.
• Families in the area will be responsible for raising the plants.
• Youths of the village will maintain the plantations along with self-help women groups.
• Village level ecological committee is responsible for conservation of planta tions and trees grown up in streets.
• Community vis-a-vis the village level ecological committee will be owners of the plantations.

2. Agricultural Support

Objective:

• To start agriculture related income generating activities.
• To ensure Food Security
• To ensure ecological balance
• To protect and extend Human Rights

The agricultural support will be at the level of training and participatory planning. The dalits as labourers have numerous cultivation skills but no experience of the managerial aspects of the agricultural operations. They have generally laboured on farms that have not been very scientifically or effectively operated and managed. The training will involve selection of the optimum crop, and cropping patterns, including inter-cropping. The utilisation of inputs, determination of the quality and timing of their application will form one component.

The shift towards organic farming will also involve training for the manufacture of organic manure, pesticides and weedicides as well as their effective use. Some innovations in the production methods, labour process and technology are also required. Training about these would be imparted to the communities.

The training would also concentrate on the management aspects since the community does not have adequate experience in financial and marketing management of agriculture. As supportive skills maintenance of records etc. will also have to be imparted.

The basic unit of 25 to 30 families will serve as the unit for the management practices as well.

3. Regeneration of Land:

The activities include obtaining land, regularisation of land control, desalination, soil conservation and land development, water conservation and harvesting, agricultural development, organic farming, creation of livelihood opportunities, and food security.

The land would be regenerated and prepared for organic farming. Organic manure would be created and applied to the land to restore the nutrient values. Where necessary, the soil would be tested by experts and the proper nutrient application will be decided and carried out.

The people's traditional knowledge and skills will be integrated and utilised to regenerate the land. Indigenous knowledge and knowledge systems will be explored for this purpose. Wherever necessary the traditional indigenous systems will be combined with and supplemented by modern techniques and methods.

4. Animal Husbandry

One of the activities of the mothers' cooperatives will be animal husbandry. The basis of the activity will be the animals that will be provided to each beneficiary family. Similarly, arrangements would be made for other animals that can augment incomes, e.g., goat, poultry, etc. The fodder will be grown in each farm. The sale of the product - milk, poultry products, etc., will be marketed through the cooperatives. The care of the animals - including health care, scientific feeding, breeding, sale of extra animals etc. will be supervised and assisted by the cooperative.

With regard to areas where the communities have no skills or possibility of getting into reconstruction activities where people are more involved in agricultural labour, sheep/ goat rearing can be taken up as a short-term activity in increasing incomes within a short gap of 4-6 months. On a longer term (with purchase of female goats and sheep) the activity can be a sustainable income generation programme which even the elderly and single women can take up. Dairying is a little more expensive and needs systems of milk collection and spaces for cattle sheds etc.

5. Women's empowerment programme

Women's empowerment is a process, which is both ongoing and dynamic, and which enhances women's ability to change those structures and ideologies, which keep them subordinate. This process enables them to gain more access to resources and decision-making; gain more control over their own lives, gain more autonomy. It is a process, which enables women to have self-respect and dignity, and improves their self-image and social image.

This process aims at opportunities for girls and women to realise their full potential and to have choices and not to be pushed into only a few traditional roles and occupations. This can be achieved by: 1) Giving them an education that empowers rather than domesticates; 2) Providing facilities and resources available to women to meet their basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and their special needs in health and security, and 3) Providing women access to and control over means of production, property and other resources and control over income.

6. Gender Cells

Gender justice will be one of the major aims and objectives of the programme. A basic structure towards the empowerment of women will be self-help credit groups. A woman for each family will be a member of the self help-credit group. The group of families -25 to 30 - forming the basic unit will also constitute the self-help credit group. The groups will also be the basic organisational nuclei for women in the area. It is expected that these groups will then take up specific gender justice related questions. The groups will thus be the decision making bodies of women - decisions that will relate to the families, the community and the locality. The same groups will also take up active role in the preservation and storage of the food grains, as well as in the management of consumer and credit cooperatives.

7. Livelihood and alternate employment issues

Since almost all dalits were either involved in allied sectors of fishing or agricultural labour near coastal areas (where lands have got inundated due to salinity which implies no production in the fields for next two seasons minimum). The question of livelihood looms large even if the fisheries sector is revived within the next six months the people involved in agriculture labour will not be satisfactorily employed as agricultural systems needs longer time for revival. However the possibilities for alternate livelihood processes are not full fledged because of the existing situations and skills within the communities. In the context of disasters where large volume of work needs to be created we need to work on situations where skills and upgradation is very easy, materials and raw materials are locally available, and the marketing is locally possible.

8. Housing and Reconstruction

One area possible is housing and all reconstruction activities are going to be happening in the coming two years in the context of the tsunami. However the existing facilities and skilled persons would not be able to deal with the large necessity. A skills /production upgradation facility on various counts given below would help the labourers and allied communities.

9. Brick making Unit

Unit which some in the community are already familiar with requiring minimal infrastructural facilities. However the mud required has to be transported from outside. Yet it is an ideal employment for people used to manual labour adding value which helps in getting more wages.

10. Ferro cement/ precast Units

Manufacture of hollow brick and full cement brick making Unit is a good possibility and manufacture of window frames, doorframes ventilations etc is also possible with minimum infrastructure of molds, frames and some technical training. These units have the possibility of providing employment opportunities for both women and men.

11. Vocational Training

Likewise young men and women can be given a crash course for 2-3 months (or continuing courses) in carpentry and electrician courses specifically looking at housing and local needs. Likewise masonary training and work related to it can be looked into. This also requires only minimal expenditures like the purchase of instruments needed for construction activity like spades, axes, and other construction instruments.

Likewise the technical training to construct low cost smokeless chulas can be incorporated in other programmes.

12. Fish processing Units

In areas closely related to fishing areas, fish processing, dry fish processing, tinning, fish pickles etc. needs to be looked into. These areas and activities needed to be done in close coordination with traders or exporters or people involved in the sector.

13. Zero waste Units

Livelihood possibilities can be worked out in areas promoting eco friendly products based on from coconut shells and palmyara trees leaves, looking into the concept of using naturally available materials not valued locally but which can be used to create aesthetically tasteful and practically useful products like cups, plates, bags, files, pens etc.

The possibilities of working with different fibres locally for designing and producing consumables required for upmarket hotels and resorts in the coast and otherwise in urban areas like Chennai and other centers need to be worked out.

14. Hand made paper Units

Hand made paper units work out possibilities of catering to the needs of offices, hotels etc. with handmade paper products, envelopes pads files etc,

15. Housekeeping products Unit

Housekeeping products unit designs and producer of sheets, towels, napkins, laundry bags and other materials necessary in hotels hospitals and other commercial units with appropriate printing and design facilities. These activities are feasible for urban-based centers, the contract and production and marketing processes needs to be worked out using business professionals

16. Candle making Units

(Scented candles, Citronella based mosquito repellent candles, Designer candles etc) Candle making units have the potential to create employment, which is home centric.

All these above suggested activities should be pursued only with peoples collectives or SHGs.

17. Fish sellers/Labourers Co operatives

There can be also areas of work like working at fish sellers co operatives / labourers co operatives which look into the question of social security inclusive of health insurance general insurances, ensuring of educational support for children other social support structures, credit activities and ensuring government facilities ensured for the unorganized sector. The work can also result in the wider consolidation of the sections of unorganized labour.

18. Legal Assistance

Legal assistance is another area of VAK's intervention. Legal assistance aims at providing assistance to the victims to redress grievances relating to loss of lives, and properties. It also includes any loss of insurance policies bank passbooks, ration cards; property documents legal heir certificates, and guardian-ship and succession documents. Assistance in these regards would empower the victims with the necessary legal rights to access the legal and constitutional remedies to make the state responsible and accountable for relief and rehabilitation. Also support for an independent damage assessment study and survey to assess the loss of properties and other losses to make adequate claims. This independent study is to make a fair and just valuation of property lost and other damages as counter information and data to the usual under valuation and assessment of such losses by government authorities, usually carried out on a partisan basis with caste, community and political biases.

Compensation and rehabilitation packages and claims of death and damages will necessitate regular interface with the bureaucracy. Given their track record in the country, which even most normal of times is driven with red tape and delays, which is likely to continue. This will certainly aggravate the trauma of the victims already trying to cope up with the deaths and losses.

19. Health

Health is also another important area following the disaster. In many places public health facilities have collapsed or have not been restored. Most of the women, elderly persons and children suffer from various illnesses due to malnutrition, lack of drinking water and other basic necessities. Following the quake in many rural areas, public services like health care facilities are not being restored and people have no recourse to any other health facility. Poor health status of women is a serious concern in this area. It becomes all the more difficult for women when they not only are deprived of basic health centre facilities but are also not in position to voice out problems, especially gyneac related problems, they face. There is a need to create awareness on health issues and establish a system in which women can independently deal with their problems, even if it is with help of MVMs.
Nutritious food for anemic or pregnant women: Health problems are generated in women mainly due to lack of proper nutrition. Anemic and/or pregnant women are most vulnerable to this. It is planned to support about 150 women with nutritious food.

20. Documentation and Research

VAK is planning for a macro level study to compare the situation of various socio-economic classes in the Tsunami - affected districts, in terms of the following aspects:

1. The extent of damage in terms of housing and physical infrastructure in earth quake affected areas, and the quantity and quality of rehabilitation of physical infrastructure;
2. The impact and effectiveness of the various steps taken by the implementing agencies of the state in rebuilding of houses, adoption and relocation, etc. and the effectiveness of special facilities such as material, banks for the provision of building material;
3. the impact of the Tsunami on various classes of earners, and the implementation and effectiveness for various economic categories of people of the various packages for economic rehabilitation;
4. the role of the state in terms of implementation of welfare schemes for the poor and marginalised communities, both those instituted after the earthquake as well as those already in existence before it;
5. the role of the state in making people prepared for another such eventuality

21. Better Communication

The media provide information, entertainment and education. It is important to give more stress to education in the context of disasters. For this, packaging and targeting of information is necessary. It involves specialist inputs and training of professionals. Probably specialist NGOs can coordinate with media managers (editors, chiefs of bureau) to better enable print, TV, radio and even internet media professionals to handle rehabilitation information and education. Media professionals should be provided with more opportunities to systematically study the rehabilitation process. NGOs and government officials can help them in this regard.

NGOs can also facilitate media access to communities and inaccessible villages by way of setting up newspaper libraries. Specialist NGOs can set up information centers with a core group of rehabilitation and/or communication specialists who can interact with communities and media professionals at the same time.

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