Young Habitat Volunteers Provide Vital Aid in Batticaloa

We will continue to help where we can... When rebuilding starts we will be there to help Habitat programs. We enjoy it, because we know that people will have a better life." A. Navaruban

A Habitat team: Young volunteers offer vital assistance to the Batticaloa affiliate and their community (from left) team leader A. Navaruban, F.A. Nirmalarao, S. Revathan, M. Thanushan, and K. Sakayathevan

by Mikel Flamm in Batticaloa

BANGKOK, 11th January 2005: They work in the hospital. They carry the dead. They clear rubble. Many are suffering personal losses, but they are ready to help rebuild their community.

Young Habitat volunteers have been vital in assisting the Batticaloa affiliate cope with the tsunami aftermath. The 25 volunteers, aged 19-24, had worked on Habitat projects for the previous six months. Now their community along the shores of the lagoon and ocean resembles a vast wasteland. There are broken buildings, uprooted trees, and ruined houses. In some places there is just rubble.

"We will continue to help when and where we can," said team leader A. Navaruban (24). "When the rebuilding starts we will be there to help the Habitat programs. We enjoy it, because we know that people we help will have a better life."

Navaruban heard a plea on public radio soon after the tsunami hit. Volunteers were desperately needed at the general hospital, to help clean the emergency areas."I called each member of our group and told them that we were needed. We met at the Habitat office with our project coordinator Justice Gregory and we went to the hospital together."

The hospital was in chaos. More and more injured and dying people were arriving, Hospital staff were unable to cope. The volunteers got to work cleaning the emergency room and removing the bodies of the dead.

"We were all afraid at first to carry the people who had died, but we knew what we had to do," recalled Navaruban. "Over two days we stretchered over 600 bodies to the morgue. More than
200 were young children, the rest were the elderly. Most were women."

Team member, Revathan (19), said, "It was very difficult emotionally for us. I felt so sorry for them. But we all felt justified to help and we knew what we did was right. The numbers were hard to believe. They just kept coming and coming.” Later the volunteers helped take bodies to a graveyard, four kilometers from the city.

One volunteer, M. Thanushan (19), was working, when he found his uncle among the dead. Their team leader's loss is unimaginable. Thirteen members of Navaruban's family had lived along Bar Road, one of the hardest hit areas of the lagoon, runnimg parallel to the seaside. Two of Navaruban's step brothers, five nephews, two grandfathers and four brother-in-laws all died.

Justice Gregory, Habitat Batticaloa coordinator, is full of praise. "I thank God for our youth groups. They work day and night doing jobs that no one else volunteers to do. It was just them who came forward to help at the hospital. Not once have I heard any of them complain. They have carried body after body, hour after hour. We all work together knowing it has to be done. I admire them all very much. Hospital staff from the told me that they were thankful for the help of Habitat volunteers.”

Throughout the community, the volunteers are working. They hand out donated items and help local residents to sweep and clear away debris from their houses, both inside and outside. The retreating waters left a wasteland of fallen trees, bent metal, concrete blocks and rags. They hope soon to stop clearing rubble and start building.

"I thank God for our youth groups. They work day and night doing jobs that no one else volunteers for. Not once have I heard any of them complain." Justice Gregory

Helping the survivors: Habitat volunteers help the community to start to recover by distributing donated items to those in need.

You can help the efforts of the Habitat for Humanity Disaster Response Office by a donation to the Asia Tsunami Response Fund.