Tsunami Village

Unearthing planned activities and events at MCCSS can best be described as haphazard. On a good day, I discover an event a couple days in advance, sometimes the evening prior and other times within the hour. This all usually occurs through a chance conversation between staff and international students alike. The latter is how I stumbled upon an opportunity to visit a tsunami ravaged village which had been hard hit by the powerful waves of December 26, 2004. This remote fishing village suffered close to the worst casualties in Tamil Nadu, scoring national media attention and international aid. MCCSS staff returned to peruse the village and assess industry recovery five years after that devastating morning…

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My morning started off as usual. All those departing on the trip would need to be ready at 7:30 am sharp when the transportation would arrive. Hence, myself and four other punctual westerners were waiting downstairs by 7:25. After an hour had passed, we grew slightly nervous we had been misinformed of the plan as staff had still not arrived. However, our nerves settled when a field worker zipped up on his motorcycle around 8:30 reassuring us the event was scheduled as planned. Finally by 9:00 we loaded into the mini-buses and headed off to tsunami village - only 1.5 hours late today.

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One bumpy bus ride and two hours later we pulled up to a homely building in need of a facelift and a fresh coat of paint. Unaware, I soon discovered we would first be attending a leadership training session with various levels of the women’s self-help groups. This is why I often describe a day of field work as venturing into the wild - you literally never quite know what the day may hold….

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All sessions begin in song. MCCSS believes this helps to bond staff with those they serve through harmony. The word harmony is used figuratively. Ha! Even though I don’t speak Tamil, it’s apparent who can reach the right pitch. The songs are generally about poverty and human rights and while I respect the concept, it still makes me smile to imagine beginning a work day with staff singing tunes. Working here at MCCSS has solidified the concept that you can always learn something…it usually is not what you planned on learning, but there is something to gain each day if you remain open to it.
As I sat sweating in the shabby building, watching sari-swathed women sit lotus-style on the floor, listening to Tamil flow in one ear and out the other I began to wonder when exactly we planned to visit tsunami village; after all that was the original plan, wasn’t it? It is futile to be somewhere physically if you aren’t there mentally, so I dragged myself back to the present and silently observed. The women worked in two teams, scribbling Tamil characters on an oversized sheet of paper. They were brainstorming qualities of a self-help group (SHG) and an SHG leader. Discussion bounced back and forth and slowly a few key leadership qualities emerged. A leader should first and foremost be literate – remember these groups are formed in slums with little education; some women can’t even sign their own name.

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An SHG leader should also:
1. Be knowledgeable about empowerment
2. Maintain good relations within the community
3. Not want to lead for power, but rather for the skill set she possesses to do successfully

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Why all this discussion about leadership? Through careful questioning and slurred Indian English I learned MCCSS was entering year two of a three year women’s empowerment grant. MCCSS has no control over the groups in regards to leadership election or removal, thus training is crucial to teach women to empower themselves. MCCSS purely disseminates knowledge and facilitates. The women must take matters into their own hands, basing decisions formed upon their own needs and wants. Mmmm, the sweet scent of self-sustainability….
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Here’s how the women’s SHG movement breaks down: one self-help group contains 20 members, 20 self-help groups form one federation and three members of each formed federation are elected into a confederation. Confederations are the long-term goal of the empowerment grant. The breadth of the movement is directly correlated with the number of successful confederations. The goal is to have a 90 member confederation, so let’s do the math. Remember, each group consists of 20 members and 20 groups make one federation, meaning that each federation is touching 400 women. The goal is 30 federations, so 30 federations * 400 women = 12,000 women being empowered within three years. If I explained this well, you should be amazed! If I didn’t explain it well, just be amazed anyway…

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The grant is three-fold. Year one focused on group creation (650+ groups strong), year two builds upon the SHG groups to focus on elections and federation leadership and year three will aim for strengthening confederations and the formation of a Central Committee to oversee the infrastructure after the grant expires. Never before in my non-profit years have I seen an NGO reach out and empower so many individuals, on so many levels. The grassroots outreach and empowerment found at MCCSS is unrivaled. Although I find this thoroughly exciting, undoubtedly this is boring for the majority of those not in non-profit, so i’ll move on…

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The true highlight of the day was learning the story of one of the leaders of a federation and self-help group. Her name is Velakanni (velah-kah-knee)and I had met on numerous occasions - though she never shared her story with me before today. Everyone has a story to tell. Sometimes you discover it right away, but the sweetest stories are well worth the wait. Velakanni became a SHG leader four years ago under the direction of MCCSS. She took the role like fish to water. During one particularly harsh monsoon season, Vela’s slum was flooded in waist-high water. Homes literally washed away, food was sparse, everything was destroyed – all due to lack of storm drain funding for slum residences denied by the Tamil Nadu government. Velakanni had been trained on human rights in her self-help group through a previous MCCSS training. So, she stormed the streets collecting signatures for a petition to the state government to demand action for her threatened community. The first petition was ignored. The second petition was again ignored. The third petition was ignored as well. Knowing you can’t repeat the same action and expect different results, Velakanni changed her plan. She inspired an entire community and rallied them in a Gandhi-esque, transportation blockade in central Chennai. They stopped traffic for over an hour and honking horns quickly notified traffic police and government officials of the ensuing situation. They arrived to disband the protestors, but Vela and neighborhood residents refused to disperse until officials promised to visit their drowning community.

Government officials arrived by boat to the neighborhood the next day and upon seeing the condition of the ruined slum, immediately issued a 2,000 rupee payment per household ($40 USD) for storm drains. Victory! From uneducated housewife to empowered community organizer, she has become a powerful and respected woman of her community. You would never know behind those chubby cheeks and ultra-sweet smile that Vela is a force with which to be reckoned. Everyone has a story to share if you care enough to discover it. Do you know yours?

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By early afternoon training had concluded and we were off to tsunami village. After all the interesting information from the morning session I nearly forgot about the village visit. The buses weaved through the narrow, sand-covered streets and we disembarked a few blocks from the water’s edge. Houses were half-crumbling, trash was strewn everywhere, building materials lay dormant on cemented foundations, mangy dogs slept on sand piles, cows grazed on discarded refuge and a billion scents wafted through the air from cardamom to sewage – but this is India; nothing seemed out of the ordinary from other towns.

The most noticeable difference was the lack of row boats and wooden rafts; everyone had a motor boat. I quickly learned the tsunami was a bittersweet memory for the village. In the wake of waves, international aid flooded the village tenfold of tsunami waters. In fact, so much aid poured in that building materials marked for recovery housing were soon sold on the black market for a quick buck. This is not to fault the people of the village. This aid setback resounds around the world from Ethiopia to Ecuador. The problem is only half-rooted in poverty and greed. The other half is rooted in foreign NGO’s misunderstanding of local needs and mindsets. Neither is this to fault foreign relief, however, there is something to say for international not-for-profits who funnel their money into local agencies to organize recovery. Who better equipped to manage social problems further complicated by a natural disaster than local NGO’s?

So back to the boats…a large cause for concern is the sudden overpopulation of outboard motor boats. Of course the fishing community is delighted to receive zippy boats, but the concern stems from the improved efficiency strain on the environment - not only in terms of pollution but overfishing. The livelihood of a fishing village hangs in the balance of fish. If there are no more fish, what then becomes of the fishing village? Efficiency is not always an ideal gift; in some cases it just may be the opposite. Hence, for those in local non-profits, understand your community. For donors in the international community, understand your non-profit.

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We boarded two, shiny boats and motored into open water. There is a vacant island 30 minutes from the shoreline that forms a protective barrier between the river and the Bay of Bengal. This small island and the dense trees that dot the shoreline spared this tiny village from much higher numbers of death and despair the morning after Christmas 2004. We pulled up to the island and jumped overboard splashing down into the shallow, warm water. It was a sight to see grown women in their immaculate saris playing in the sand and surf like water babies. After an hour of sun and waves we returned inland. It was time to check the recovery of the fish market and village economy.

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This wasn’t my first time to a fish market and I was fully prepared for the funk of fish as I stepped foot into the open-air, stone-walled market. What I did not expect was the slime, scales and flies hovering over, in, under, above and around every surface. I love seafood, but this surely made me question where mine comes from before it reaches my lips. It’s hard to see the flies, but check out the shots below for a feel of the fish emporium. Weighing fish and bartering the day's market price.
All in all it was a day to remember, just like yesterday was and tomorrow will be. There is always something to learn, whether from a uneducated, former housewife of the slums empowered enough to tackle government or bittersweet motor boats which may devastate a local economy. The important part is keeping your eyes and ears open for the lesson of the day…