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Red Cross Brings Hope and Help to the Maldives
Stacey M. Winston, Press Officer, American Red Cross
Thursday, March 24, 2005 — “Even now I am afraid the tsunami will come back,” says 11-year-old Thola who is staying with her family in a tsunami displaced persons camp on Hulumale Island in the Maldives.
The Maldives, which means “garland of islands,” experienced the fury of the tsunami when it raced through the Indian Ocean last December killing 82 people, affecting 100,000 individuals – 30 percent of the population, destroying homes and livelihoods, and evoking fear in the lives of those who survived.
A boat delivers school supplies to an island in the Maldives. |
To counter the fear and destruction left behind by the tsunami, an American Red Cross psychosocial support team led by Dr. Joseph Prewitt-Diaz focused on training volunteers from the psychosocial support unit and teachers to reach the most vulnerable of the tsunami-affected island within the atolls. People on the islands were not prepared to respond to such a catastrophic event given they had never experienced a natural disaster before the tsunami.
The islands have no national Red Cross or Crescent society, so relief efforts were coordinated on the islands by a team of delegates from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (the Federation), which included the American Red Cross.
“Psychosocial is one of the first needs to be addressed,” said Jerry Talbot, head of the delegation for the Federation in the Maldives. “The number of people who have been reached is incredible – it’s been a very good program.”
In the critical early weeks following the tsunami, American Red Cross-trained volunteers in psychological first aid were sent to 23 affected atolls – or islands – to organize emotional support teams. These volunteers were available around the clock and a psychosocial support helpline was established through the government’s disaster management office.
An American Red Cross psychosocial worker and Red Cross-trained teachers conduct creative and expressive actitivites with children in the Maldives. |
By partnering with UNICEF for teacher training, the American Red Cross was able to reach teachers across the islands. “After the Red Cross training and UNICEF workshops, the teachers are more open and they had a more proactive outlook on understanding how children change,” said Mohammed Naheem of UNICEF.
To date, the psychosocial support programs have conducted 16 teacher training sessions, which reached at least one teacher on every one of the 200 inhabited islands. One of the trained teachers, Haifia Ahmed stated, “We have never faced anything like this, now [the teachers] are more prepared mentally and we know what to do if there is another disaster.”
Through the distribution of school chests and teacher recreational kits, the American Red Cross psychosocial programs helped teachers and children in the Maldives return to a sense of normalcy following the tsunami. Many of the school children, especially those who are staying in internally displaced camps, such as 11 year old Thola, are struggling to move forward from the traumatic experience of the tsunami.
“The American Red Cross programs help children recognize and enhance resilience through creative and expressive activities,” explained Dr. Prewitt-Diaz.
In the displaced-persons camps and at the schools on the islands, the American Red Cross psychosocial-trained volunteers are helping children to share their fears and their hopes for the future. “Activities like asking children to blow their fears away by blowing bubbles out to the sea bring smiles and help these children to move on,” said Sujata Bordoloi, a member of the American Red Cross psychosocial team.
An American Red Cross psychosocial training center is planned for the Maldives. So far, 321 teachers have been trained to listen to children, and carry out activities in the classroom as part of their curriculum that will help them to express their feelings about the event. Fifty seven volunteers from the psychosocial support unit were trained in Psychological First Aid.
The psychosocial programming also empowered communities to rebuild after a disaster through activities that restored livelihoods. In the case of a small community on the island of Maafushi, 13 widows lost their livelihoods when the tsunami destroyed their sewing machines. These widows will receive 10 new sewing machines to replace those lost in the 7 feet of water the tsunami left behind, along with bolts of fabric to restart their business.
“The American Red Cross and the millions of donors will make a dream come true for many young women and widows who will be using the sewing machines to initiate the reconstruction of their lives” expressed Dr. Prewitt-Diaz.
The “garland of islands” may have been broken by the tsunami, but the “flowers of the Indies” as Marco Polo called the Maldives, are beginning to bloom again. Since the tsunami, the American Red Cross psychosocial programs have benefited more than 20,000 people throughout the Maldives, and hope to continue to reach the islands’ residents so children like Thula will no longer have to fear the return of a tsunami.
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