April 1, 2005
A View From Sri Lanka: How the Tsunami Mobilized Women to Action
An interview with Shanthi Arulampalam, founder of Survivors International
By Paula Goldman
Shanthi Arulampalam is the founder of Survivors International, a non-profit organization in Sri Lanka that is now heavily involved in reconstruction after December's devastating tsunami killed tens of thousands of Sri Lankans and displaced roughly two million more (out of a total population of 19 million). For many years prior, her organization worked on initiatives to counteract the armed conflict in her country between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government. She has gained international recognition for pioneering techniques of bridgebuilding and conflict resolution between Tamil and Sinhalese women in particular.
When I spoke with Shanthi, she had recently returned to her office in Colombo from a trip to the Northeast and East coasts of Sri Lanka, which had been most devastated by the tsunami. She began by telling some of the stories she'd heard in the villages where she worked:
(SA:)
When the tsunami came, water surrounded the houses and flooded them with a violent force. There were two waves, a smaller one, followed by a very large one about 20 minutes later. The first wave came when many women and their families were at home. The water rushed into the houses, and for some of these women, it tore off their clothes.
Remember that these areas had people of many different religions. The Hindu women and the Christian women and the Buddhist women, they ran out of their houses, even if they were completely naked. But the Muslim women in this area were concerned about modesty. They couldn't run away naked, and so they stayed in their houses. And then the second wave came, the much bigger one, and they were trapped. And they died. Muslim women died at a much higher rate in the villages where I worked.
PG: These were villages where your organization,
Survivors International, had been working previous to the
tsunami?
Yes. These were villages in the North and East of Sri Lanka that had been heavily affected by fighting during Sri Lanka's armed conflict. For the last few decades, violence between government forces and the Tamil Tigers has caused heavy casualties in these areas. Survivors International had been doing a lot of work with war widows, mostly creating micro lending programs to help these women become economically self-sufficient. These were hugely successful programs-- we really felt we were making a difference. But then the tsunami came. In many cases, out of twelve women in a micro credit group, only two or three survived the tsunami.
PG: So what is your organization doing in these communities now?
We've been helping distribute relief supplies and to give psychosocial support - for example, to reassure survivors that there's only a "one in 10,000" chance of a tsunami happening again in their lifetime.
There are also rituals we've been encouraging to help people come to terms with their loss. Usually when someone in the household dies, there are remembrance ceremonies -- 30, 40, or 60 days after their death, depending on the religion of the family. But when so many people have died, and they're all living in camps - well, no one's gotten around to doing the proper rituals. Many are still hoping that their loved ones will come home.
When the water came, people were being swept away by the ocean. And strangers would grab them, and send them on with whatever lorry or auto happened to be passing by. Some ended up in hospitals in the middle of the country, hours away. And they're only now turning up back in their villages.
PG: How is the general morale in these areas?
Well, bad, of course. But you know, our offices have been setting up superstores with relief goods -- big piles of food and home supplies. And I told my staff to tell the women to go and take just what's necessary for them, and to leave the rest for others in need. People told me I was crazy. They thought that it would be a madhouse with people taking huge piles of goods and leaving nothing for others. But that's not true. In fact, the women go calmly into the warehouses and take just a few things that they really need. And they leave the rest because they know other people need it too. They have retained a strong sense of self-respect, even now, even in the most dire of circumstances.
PG: I've heard reports that the tsunami is providing opportunities for cooperation between people of different ethnic groups who may have been in conflict with one another.
Yes. You'd not believe how many Tamil women would come to tell me that it was Sinhalese families who saved them -- who pulled them from the water, or who gave them food when they had nothing to eat. And vice versa for the Sinhalese -- they were helped out by their Tamil neighbors. People keep coming to tell me this, without my ever asking.
PG: What was your motivation for starting Survivors International, pre tsunami? Why in particular, did you choose to work with women as a way of ameliorating the conflict in Sri Lanka?
I was a single head of household raising two sons. I struggled very hard to make ends meet and to take care of my family at a time when women working professionally was very difficult in Sri Lanka. It still is.
I was an entrepreneur. I started out working in a local company and gradually became an independent businesswoman, exporting spices in fact. This was at a time when very few women were in business for themselves, or in business at all. I think I was one of the first women in the Colombo Chamber of Commerce. So I really identified with the war widows who had to suddenly take care of families but had no resources to be able to make a living, and no societal support either. I wanted to help them.
Also, though I'm Sinhalese, I'd been married to a Tamil man. My kids were half Tamil, with Tamil surnames, and I saw how they got teased in school and otherwise harassed when this whole conflict erupted. And it made me upset.
PG: It's often said that in such violent conflicts, women are more active than men in the work of bridge building and reconciliation. Do you think that's really true, and if so, why?
Yes. I think women have more to lose from war and conflict. They're generally closer to their children, and more invested in them, so they're more afraid of losing them to war. And so they're somehow usually more inclined to relate to women from all different backgrounds because they all share a common concern for their children.
PG: So what's next for Survivors International? What kind of work will you be doing long-term with tsunami survivors, as they move out of camps and back into their villages?
Things are still a bit unclear at the moment. We'll stay in the villages we'd been working in for years to continue to offer psychosocial support, and coordinate reconstruction efforts. But we'll need to expand and cover more regions. Two thirds of the Sri Lankan coastline was affected by the tsunami. It killed more people in a few hours than in 30 years of our armed conflict. And we'll of course continue doing micro credit and revolving loan schemes for women, but we'll need to expand beyond women too, now. Many men have lost their families and their livelihoods or have otherwise been handicapped. So we'll need to start assisting them as well.
PG: What gave you the courage to do all of this work &endash; to give up you high-powered entrepreneurial job and decide that you could make a difference?
It's not unique, Paula, I promise you that. There are plenty of women -- and men -- just like me who are engaged in helping their communities all around Sri Lanka, and specially because of the war, but even more so now after the tsunami. My contributions aren't so unusual.
So maybe the question isn't "Why did you?" but instead, "How could you not?" And really, how could we not? Especially now, when there's so much work to be done.
For more information on Survivors International, or to send a contribution, please contact Shanthi Arulampalam suraso@eureka.lk or 011-94-1-735-408.
For more information about the International Museum of Women, please visit www.imow.org