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A Tsunami of Kindness

British Columbians join the digital, global Adopt a Village movement.

Guy Dauncey 3 Jan 2005TheTyee.ca

Guy Dauncey is a member of Canada’s Green Party. He is the founder of the BC Sustainable Energy Association, co-founder of the Victoria Car Share Cooperative, and the author or co-author of 10 books, including The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming.

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The images tell it all.

All down the coastlines of Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and so many other places, we see the same heart-wrenching images of loss and destruction. The survivors not only have to cope with losing their families andneighbours; their homes, boats, jobs and local economies have also been washed away.

The world is organizing a massive relief mission, but the recovery effort will need to go on for months, perhaps years.

We are already writing cheques, and clicking the electronic button to send money to the agencies which are racing to get supplies to the people who need it. But quietly in the sidelines, waiting to become properly organized, lies a whole new movement which could radically affect the way we respond to disasters of this kind.

It's called "adopt a village".

Nelson to Tamil Nadu


In the town of Nelson, B.C., the Kootenay Christian Fellowship is asking residents to raise $10,000 to adopt a small fishing village near Mamallapuram, on the disaster-stricken coast of India.

In Vancouver, the lounge and events club Campoverde wants Vancouver to adopt a village devastated by the tsunami, and is holding a silent auction on January 20th to get their efforts started. "By focusing on one particular village," they say, "our community can focus our resources to make a viable contribution." They are inviting other communities in Canada and around the world to do the same.

In Upper Township, New Jersey, the Catholic Church of the Resurrection has adopted the fishing village of Colachel, on the southern tip of India, where hundreds were killed in the deadly tsunami.

In India, the Rotary Club's District 3000 in Tamil Nadu is planning to adopt a village or two, and to take responsibility for all the reconstruction efforts. The Indian Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi has adopted a village in the Nagapattinam region of Tamil Nadu, and is supporting it with medicines, fishing nets, and food packages.

Two years ago, in India, members of the India Gospel League adopted villages in the stricken earthquake area of Gujarat, knowing that most relief agencies would withdraw after the initial stage of relief was over. They are now planning to use the same strategy to help people rebuild their homes, provide them with basic amenities, utensils and supplies, and provide micro-credit of $500 each to 100 families to help them restart their fishing businesses. The former Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has asked each of his party's MPs to adopt a village.

Still in India, the non-profit, non-religious social service organization Udavum Karangal, based in Chennai (Madras), is adopting villages near Chidambaram and Cuddalore. They plan to provide low cost housing for 500 families, at a cost of 15,000 to 20,000 rupees per house ($415 to $520 CAN, totalling $250,000).

In Hyderabad, India, the Andhra Pradesh Real Estate Developers' Association has offered to adopt a
village hit by the tsunami, and construct at least 50 houses to rehabilitate the worst affected people.

A net of kindness?

Back in Canada, the community of Squamish, British Columbia also wants to adopt a village. Councillor Jeff Dawson, who is spearheading the project, remembers that Squamish received a lot of help when it was hit by floods just over a year ago, and he wants to return the generosity, hoping that Squamish will raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So let's pause, and look at this globally.

There are five million people who need help, as they struggle to rebuild their lives and their villages. Can we respond to the cruelty of the tsunami with a tsunami of kindness?

There are millions of people who live in the world's wealthy nations, however, and many people in India, Thailand and elsewhere who also want to help.

Using the Internet, it is possible to visualize someone creating a website which would list every village that needed help, from the beach resorts of Thailand to the fishing villages of India and Sri Lanka. Cities, villages, Rotary Clubs, churches, businesses, and community groups could then step forward and say "we'll sponsor that village".

We could include the Haitian town of Gonaives, still in shock after the disastrous flooding it received from Hurricane Jeanne this summer, and the Caribbean island of Grenada, savaged by Hurricane Ivan, along with other small communities which have been hit hard by natural disasters.

It is also possible to believe that global and local aid agencies would welcome this kind of participation. The biggest challenge they face is how to sustain their fund-raising efforts once the global media has moved on to other things.

By putting down roots at the village level, where individuals feel they can make a difference, we could stabilize the flow of aid, while building long-term relationships which would enrich people's lives for years. The agencies could guide the movement by setting up partnerships with the sponsoring communities, and the personal connections which would make it come alive.

The Internet allows us to think, plan and organize in totally new ways, as we address the challenges of the 21st century. It also allows ordinary people to share in huge global undertakings.

The tsunami is the biggest natural disaster that has hit us in modern times, aside from wars and famines. If the agencies can help the fledgling 'adopt a village' movement to find its legs, using the Internet to its fullest capacity, they may be surprised how fast it can run.

Aid links:
Canadian Red Cross: http://www.redcross.ca/
CARE Canada: http://www.carecanada.ca/
Médecins Sans
Frontières: http://www.msf.ca/
Oxfam Canada:
http://www.oxfam.ca/
UNICEF Canada: http://www.unicef.ca/
World Vision Canada: http://www.worldvision.ca/

Guy Dauncey [[email protected]]  is author of
Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change (New Society
Publishers, 2001). He lives in Victoria, B.C.
 [Tyee]

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