But it has—four times already this year, sloshing mud through homes, polluting wells, and forcing families in this hilly Sri Lankan district of Ratnapura to flee to higher ground until the water recedes. And while they're gone, their lives are on hold: Men can't get to work, children miss school, and women labor doubly hard over household tasks in temporary quarters.
"We're sick of the floods—going here and there, cleaning, interrupting children's education and livelihoods," said Renuka Damayanthi, a 35-year-old mother. "We have to re-organize and rebuild again and again."
There may be no worthier a place for developing a plan to reduce the risk of disasters than here in the small villages tucked into the undergrowth along the Kalu River. And there may be no women more able to help with that task than those who have evacuated their homes as many times as these women have, scurrying to gather the few household goods they know their families will need to survive. And now, with the increased frequency of those floods hinting at climate change, the need to find ways to cut down on the trouble they cause is more urgent than ever.
How involved have women become in efforts to reduce the chance their families and neighbors will run into serious difficulties from floods and landslides? And what might be holding the women back?
Those are among the central questions in a new piece of research aimed at influencing how governments think about long-lasting ways for keeping people, their assets, and their means of earning a living safe—especially in places prone to beatings from Mother Nature. In the language of the experts, that safe-keeping is known as disaster risk reduction, or DRR. Carried out by the Institute for Participatory Interaction Development and funded by Oxfam, the research is directed at promoting equal participation of both men and women in these new disaster-related initiatives.
"Women are the ones mostly affected by disaster—and the most vulnerable—and the response system isn't sensitive to looking into women's needs," said Indira Aryaratne, the lead researcher for the study, which focuses on six areas within two districts of Sri Lanka.
The research was spurred by the 2004 tsunami, as was a new countrywide focus on disaster management. But around the communities of Muwagama and Haldolla, that effort has been slow to materialize—as Aryaratne discovered in the course of meeting with scores of villagers. In Haldolla, for instance, officials called a meeting in 2006 to begin organizing a local disaster management program and to appoint people to a variety of subcommittees, but that's as far as it went. Villagers haven't met since to discuss the initiative.
"It will take a long time to internalize a strong community role in disaster risk reduction," said D. Wicramaarachi, the government official in charge of a small division of four villages. The concept is new, he said, and people have not yet embraced the idea that they can form committees that will play an important part in their futures.
And committees are just the beginning of the process, added Aryaratne. Disaster risk reduction has to become a way of thinking that should be reflected across the decisions a community makes for itself.
"DRR is a way of life," said Aryaratne. "It's not a one-off activity. Just forming a committee is not going to serve any purpose."
Slow as communities may be to organize formally around the concept, women—and men—in water-logged communities have plenty of ideas about what steps need to be taken to improve the safety and security of their families. Encouraging their direct participation in her research, Aryaratne has gathered a host of suggestions from villagers. She intends to share them with government officials and other stakeholders at a workshop.
On a hot afternoon in Haldolla, villagers came to participate in one of Aryaratne's focus groups. From large sheets of brown paper taped to the wall in the Haldolla community center, they took turns reading off their ideas for coping with the floods. Among the proposals the women had was the creation of a communal farm on land above flood level where they could grow vegetables to ensure their families had food. They asked to receive first-aid training that would focus specifically on medical problems related to floods, such as water-borne diseases. And they suggested constructing a bridge over a section of the river that would allow everyone easy access out of the area.
A short distance away, in Muwagama, women have also been thinking a lot about the flooding and how to better manage their lives around it. A group of them recently petitioned the local authorities for a boat to use during emergencies. They have also formed their own women's committee and have asked the government to authorize the committee to distribute relief food to flood victims, thereby ensuring that all local families in need get help.
Figuring out ways to cope with the inevitable is just one part of ensuring safety in areas like Muwagama. Being aware of the risks in living there is another. And whether villagers call it disaster risk reduction or not, knowing when rains will fall is key to preparing for them. The Singhalese New Year, which comes in April, is part of their calculation: a month and a half later the monsoon arrives.
"They know that after 45 days, there will be a flood," said Wicramaarachi, the local government official. "That's the traditional knowledge."
But traditional knowledge may now be butting up against climate change, demanding new ways of dealing with old problems.
"There have been changes in climate in the last five years. Massive floods used to happen every five years, but now it's 2008 and we've already faced four major floods," said Wicramaarachi.
Some also suspect that an increase in sand mining along river banks and on steep slopes surrounding the area could be adding to the flooding problem.
There have been so many floods lately that Damayanthi, the young mother from Muwagama, now no longer bothers to unpack the household goods she usually takes with her during evacuations. She has left them in satchels, ready to grab for the next time.
But so far, none of those times have been as bad as the terrible flood of 2003. One man in Haldolla said the water during that disaster reached as high as the electrical wires strung high overhead on poles along the road.
That was the flood that washed away K.G. Kandawathie's home next to the river—the one she had built with 12 years worth of savings from her job as house maid for a Korean family. She built a second home in the same location but now, with the recent series of floods, Kandawathie, 60, is feeling the strain.
"The best thing is to move away," she said.
For many people that won't be possible, and that's why embracing the concept of disaster risk reduction may be the smartest alternative for the Kalu River communities.
"If you can do something about the flooding that's the best idea," said Damayanthi, who is already sold on the concept. "Even if it's out of our control, we can reduce the damage."
]]>As the son of a Sri Lankan fisherman—and the first from his village ever to attend university—Fernando knows well what it means to work hard. That has been one of the defining elements of his life. But little did he know that when he left his position as a deputy director in Sri Lanka's Ministry of Agriculture he would soon become Oxfam's point man in Matara helping to revitalize the local coir industry, which turns the fiber from coconut shells into ropes, mats, and other products.
It was the tsunami that changed all his plans.
After 22 years with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fernando had retired at age 55, as many in government service do—to work longer requires permission—and had found another post, a lucrative one, in the private sector. But within days he realized it was not for him: bribery was one of the job requirements.
"I was shocked by it," he said, and, with the blessing of his wife, promptly gave his notice. Home, with its two acres of land in Kalutara district, beckoned instead.
"I started a little farm," said Fernando. "I had plantains, goats, and chickens."
Then the wave hit. His house was spared—it was far enough inland—but the coastal home he had grown up in, and which he had just restored for other family members, was swept away.
"Everybody got out—thank God," said Fernando, including his elderly father who, at 89, was saved by some youths who scooped him up in a plastic chair and carried him to safety in a church.
Right away Fernando jumped into the relief effort, working with a German organization that was assisting children affected by the disaster.
"I was helping them and I was very happy," Fernando recalled, and that's when he saw an ad Oxfam had placed for a livelihoods assistant in Matara—and applied. He had to convince the hiring committee, however, that he was the right man for the job. Why would a man from the upper echelons of Sri Lankan government service with decades of professional experience want to take the post of an assistant?
The answer was simple and unarguable.
"I want to serve," Fernando remembered explaining. "I have come from a fishing village. I'll help the same people."
They are the people, like his mother, whose early influence on his life set the standard that has guided him ever since.
"My mother was very pious and economical and good with saving," said Fernando. "Even though we didn't have money, she had money. Even today I can't believe my mother, on my father's meager earnings, had money."
Now, engaged with the coir workers, Fernando is helping other women in similar circumstances slowly build some financial security for their families—a mission that speaks to the core of who he is. The coir project, known as the Poor Women's Economic Leadership Coir Program, has helped save its members from exploitation by middle men. It has found them new markets for their coir products and introduced labor-saving equipment. Most of all, it has helped women build unity, through self-help groups and a newly formed federation that will make them a force to be reckoned with.
"I have very good job satisfaction working with these people," Fernando said. "I am happy we have empowered them. They can do anything they wish. And their living standards are becoming better."
What about this project makes him the most proud?
"Having the opportunity to work with the women," said Fernando. "They have the courage and interest to do better in society."
]]>Watching her in action, in her long orange tunic, it's clear that Aryarathne has found her calling—far from where she began in a Sri Lankan architectural firm working on designs for multi-national companies.
How did she wind up here, near the Kalu River in the Ratnapura district of Sri Lanka, helping women think about how to keep their families safe and ease the constant hardship that flooding brings?
"I always had a passion to do something for people who are less privileged than me," says Aryarathne. During her university years—as she was working toward her goal of becoming an architect—she couldn't help but think about the community outside the institution's walls: It was impoverished and yet the development of the university had done little to address that poverty. That fact bothered her deeply.
But it wasn't until Aryarathne landed her first architectural job that she got the chance to tackle that kind of injustice herself. Her firm won a contract to develop a Colombo laundry facility—a place where scores of people manually wash clothes and linens on a large scale for clients such as hotels and hospitals. The laundry sat on prime property that a multi-national company wanted to develop—and the city had agreed to let it go ahead in exchange for the corporation's commitment to build a replacement facility.
The design of that new facility fell to Aryarathne. And right from the beginning she followed the instincts that led her to where she is now: a consultant and trainer working with poor and marginalized people who have a great deal to say about how to improve their lives, but little opportunity to be heard.
Warned that the washers could become unruly and that she should be careful, Aryarathne visited the old laundry facility. Instead of being afraid, she found herself deep in conversation with the people there—after telling them the truth about the construction proposal. If it happens, she asked, what would they like a new facility to include?
The floodgates opened, and though she didn't know it then, Aryarathne had her first exhilarating experience with participatory action research—a method of working with communities on problems whose solutions they will own. At that first laundry meeting, she learned everything about their work, from soaking and soaping, to boiling and hammering.
"That was my first exposure to a community—and it was really good," said Aryarathne. "I knew they had a lot to tell me and all that my boss had said was not true."
Soon after followed other participatory architectural projects, and gradually Aryarathne came to see where her real interests lay: With people working on initiatives that will improve their lives.
Fourteen years ago—leaving behind years of training and a budding architectural career—she made the shift from the private sector into the development world. And she hasn't looked back.
"This is more satisfying than architecture," says Aryarathne.
In the small community building in Ratnapura, the session with community members comes to an end. Aryarathne looks thoughtful as she folds up the charts she has just made with their help—charts that list the problems associated with flooding and some of the solutions villagers have proposed. She will compile the findings for an Oxfam-supported study aimed at promoting equal participation of both men and women in programs to reduce their risk of disaster.
"Architects are at the service of rich people," said Aryarathne later. "Just as you cater to multi-millionaires, villagers need our services, too."
]]>On this hot August morning in a small fishing village on Sri Lanka's southern coast, he is probing locals for a full understanding of what well-being means to them. He remains serene as they squabble a bit, call each other liars, and offer up whole new categories no one has mentioned before. When a group of men can't agree on a set of criteria, he announces a tie and allows both points to become part of the findings.
Such is the life of a researcher engaged in the ebb and flow of a study that allows its authors to enter into a direct dialogue with the community they are focusing on. The approach is called participatory action research—a method Weerackody believes in deeply. He is applying it to a piece of research intended to expand the understanding of mental health issues in Sri Lankan communities affected by natural disasters or long-term conflict. Funded partially by Oxfam, the study is part of a large, four-year project conducted by investigators from McGill University. This piece is being carried out by the People's Rural Development Association, McGill's local partner.
"People are never given a chance to participate in the decision-making process," says Weerackody. "And this is what we need"
That lesson became all too clear in an earlier study he had helped to conduct on the impact of the aid system on communities affected by the tsunami. People received goods that weren't relevant to their lives, that were of poor quality, that weren't useful, says Weerackody—all because no one had bothered to consult with the communities themselves.
"It's about attitude and the way the colonial system was established," he adds. That system says decisions should be made by technical experts or politicians. "They think people don't know what they want."
Weerackody thinks otherwise.
"If it is decided by someone else, people don't have any feeling it is part of their lives," he says. And aid agencies have enough experience building roads, community halls, culverts, and the like to know quite well what will happen if beneficiaries aren't involved from the start: As nice as the facilities are, they won't be maintained, says Weerackody.
A relocated fishing village in which he has been conducting research recently offers a case in point. The hillside homes, sturdy but small, now house 55 families formerly living near the sea, and a newly built community center at the top of the hill serves as gathering place for all.
"They have a house but they're not happy," says Weerackody. "That house was not spacious. They can't entertain their relatives. They don't have enough place to sleep. One woman said she can't even make love with her husband. The lesson we learn from the study is you may design houses, but what's needed by development workers is to take into consideration other aspects of well-being."
From a rural community himself, Weerackody, who has been working in participatory development since 1982, says he takes pleasure in meeting with local people to learn about their opinions and needs—an important perspective to understand since so much of the country's population is rural. About 80 percent of Sri Lankans live in rural areas, Weerackody points out. And whenever he's got a free moment, he heads out of Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital and his current home, to visit the village in which he was raised.
"I have a strong belief in community consultation," he says. "Development workers should respect the communities and should win the trust and confidence of communities."
]]>Until then, the Dhan Foundation had never been involved in disaster response. But when the team got back to Tamil Nadu, they learned something new: that people engaged in Dhan Foundation's long-term savings groups and federations had been the first to respond to the tsunami in their communities.
"They had the networks and the resources they needed to respond," says R. Sangeetha, who at the time was a faculty member at Tata-Dhan. This gave the team an idea: Dhan could respond to the tsunami in the coastal areas, but not just for the short term.
"Instead, we decided to commit to working there on a long-term basis," said Sangeetha, to provide relief and rehabilitation, but also to reduce the risks and vulnerabilities of those communities to future disasters. Oxfam helped the Tata-Dhan Academy take this commitment a step further, supporting them to create the Advanced Center for Enabling Disaster Risk Reduction (ACEDRR), an institute within the academy that helps communities that participate in Dhan's development programs reduce the risk that a disaster will undo their hard-won gains against poverty. Sangeetha became the coordinator of the center.
The goal, says Sangeetha, is to "help development professionals to see every development action in a disaster risk reduction perspective."
People her whole life told Sangeetha that she would thrive in a service job, working with the very poor, and she agrees. "It's in my nature," she says.
She studied agricultural management at university, and decided to take a two-year job in social work to see if she liked it.
Her first job was with a tribal community in the north of the country. She lights up when she remembers it. "I loved it there," she says. "You would always find me in the communities, playing with the children or talking to people. I never wanted to leave at the end of the day."
It was early in her tenure there that she observed some children playing ball, and one girl sitting out. She asked the girl why she wasn't playing. "She said she had cancer in her legs," says Sangeetha. "The other children knew she had cancer, too. But no one knew what it meant to have cancer."
Sangeetha knew that cancer untreated would be deadly, and took it upon herself to get the child the care she needed. But when she took her to the hospital, she got some terrible news: The girl would have to lose her legs.
Sangeetha fights tears discussing this experience, even so many years later.
She counseled the family and the community, who were skeptical of harsh medical interventions like this one. Eventually, though, they decided to opt for surgery. "It was a very hard time," Sangeetha says. "I was with her every day in the hospital."
Now, seven years later, the child is 17 and healthy. Sangeetha has done her best to keep in touch the girl and her family, though it's been at least a year since she's heard anything. That experience made her decide to continue helping people as best she could.
Of her career choice, Sangeetha says "it's such hard work, but it's such important work. Even if you just help one person, it's worthwhile."
"And everyone here feels the same way," she says, gesturing to the Tata-Dhan Academy. "They all care so much. That is why this is such a wonderful place to be."
]]>But now that she has insurance, she can afford to take him to a clinic to get checked out.
According to Devudamma, many mothers here face the same dilemma when their child comes down with fever. Fevers could mean malaria or dengue, both of which are potentially fatal.
"Because they don't know what it is, the tendency is to rush to the hospital," said Devudamma, "But they charge a lot."
"That's where insurance is very handy," she said.
Many fishing families in the Pudimedaka village are deep in debt, borrowing money to rebuild boats, to cover daily costs when the catch is small or injury or illness keep them from working, or, like Devudamma, to pay for medical care.
When fish are plentiful, families have to pay back their loans, usually with a high percentage of their catch.
But health insurance, as part of a broader economic plan, is opening up new possibilities here.
Three years ago, the District Fishermen's Youth Welfare Association (DFYWA) a local NGO, and Oxfam partner, helped families in this village determine that medical expenses were a huge drain on their resources, costing some up to a quarter of their yearly income.
DFYWA also convinced Oriental Insurance, a government of India company, to create policies designed, and priced, for very poor fishing families.
Now, for what they make in a day, families like Devudamma's, can purchase an annual policy, protecting themselves from the costs of sickness, accidents ? even the death of a breadwinner.
With money saved on medical care, families here are buying ice-boxes, fishing nets and fish drying and processing equipment. These investments can help them earn a little more on their catch than they did before.
Health insurance is a great first step, but ultimately, the people of Pudimedaka need a more comprehensive insurance package to keep them out of the pockets of money-lenders, who fulfill a "mafia-like" role, according to J. Saravanan, fisheries expert from the Development Human Action (DHAN) Academy in Madurai.
Beyond medical costs, fishing families would benefit from insurance that covers assets including their boats, houses and even their day's catch.
Initially, Oriental did not know how to insure the traditional Indian catamarans that the poorest fishermen use, since they had no way of knowing whether the boats were seaworthy.
But DFYWA convinced the Department of Fisheries to rate and certify even these homemade boats. As a result, boat insurance should be available soon, according to Oriental representative Srihari Naidu.
Home insurance has also proved tricky for Oriental, since thatched roofs break easily in storms, even though they are also cheap and easy to repair.
And Naidu was confounded by the idea of insuring a fisherman's catch, despite the fact that other insurers have found a way to insure a farmer's crops.
Fish are a common resource, used by many, said Naidu. "We can't possibly know how many fish are in the sea."
Insuring assets, and not just health, would do more to keep vulnerable families out of debt, and allow them to build their savings, add value to their work, earn more money and reduce their vulnerability.
Mahalakshmi Kara, a grandmother in the village, has relied on a health insurance policy for at least a year and has started saving a small percentage of her earnings.
"We never thought that we could save, but we're doing it," she said.
"I don't know how it will be helpful," said Kara, "but if [saving] can lift us even an inch out of poverty, I'll be very happy."
]]>In the DRC, increasing violence has forced people to flee from their homes, and led to the deaths of almost 1,500 people a day. Though no other conflict causes that kind of death rate, Oxfam's workers hear similar stories of murder, rape, and displacement from men and women from Colombia to Sudan every day. Sixty years after the main Geneva Conventions enshrined civilians' rights to protection, they are violated in every current conflict.
Some states and non-state actors choose to kill civilians, or pursue strategies in which civilians are too likely to die. Some governments choose to protect their citizens: to keep them safe. Some do not protect all of them, or not well enough. There are, however, successful examples of protecting civilians that show what governments and others can do when they choose to.
They have an interest in protecting civilians, because mass atrocities fuel the conflicts that, in an interdependent world, create security threats that cannot be contained. And an increasing number of governments have a "moral interest" too, because their electorates expect them to help prevent, not just condemn, the atrocities they see beamed around the world through modern information technology.
To do so, they need to make four key changes.