Water works in camps for people displaced by disasters, like this well built by an LWR partner, are vital to the physical and emotional health of its residents.

Date: March 25, 2005

SECONDARY VICTIMS OF TSUNAMI SUFFER TOO, ONLY LESS APPARENTLY

Nias is a typical tropical island, by most accounts. Densely forested with huge, shade-producing banana trees. Incessant buzzing from unseen birds and bugs. And a "road" that by any standards would scarcely qualify as one - with potholes measuring in the meters and undulating earth that seems to have heaved itself upward in an attempt to halt the tedious progress of even the best equipped four-wheel-drive vehicles. It is three hours on such a road that is the most expeditious route to Sirombu, on the western shore of Nias . It is, alas, remote. Many mainland Indonesians, just an hour away by air, haven't graced its shores, just west of Sumatra . Lore of black magic and savage tribes do little for increasing visits there.

Even more remote, then, are the tiny islands off the west coast of Nias, where coconut farmers depend on the market in Sirombu to sell their hard-earned harvest. But when the tsunami ripped through Sirombu's villages and destroyed fishing boats and market stalls there, its effect reverberated to those islanders who physically lost nothing, but who have suffered the loss of the income.

Getting an account of the hundreds of thousands of lives affected by December's tsunami is difficult, at best. And that is before you take into considerations those populations whose rudimentary houses still stand, but who now lack a means to provide food and other necessities for their families. In most instances, these are the marginalized people who work as laborers, or who own no land themselves but instead depend on others to hire them or buy from them.

As Lutheran World Relief, LWR, helps families rebuild their lives, its work also has a ripple effect - one that restarts local economies and restores livelihoods that secondary groups depend on.

The killer waves' effects bounced back and forth between Sirombu and its smaller western islands neighbors. A destroyed market in Sirombu also destroyed the demand for the coconuts from these islands. No demand for the coconuts means no work for the skilled coconut pickers who travel from Nias to climb the trees to harvest the fruits. With no work for the climbers, even less money is available to buy other goods.and so the viscous cycle continues. Until it is broken.

LWR is working with local partners on Nias, first to provide housing and food and other necessities for the villagers who lost their homes. On the heels of this is helping survivors get back to work. "The balance of such a simple economy," comment Barbara Wetsig, LWR's Assistant Manager for Asia and the Middle East , and Manager of LWR's Tsumani Response, "is very easily upset, with one group being highly dependant upon another. The more quickly we can respond to one, the more quickly the benefits will be felt by other, connected ones."

LWR's efforts on Nias, and elsewhere in Indonesia , India and Sri Lanka , will involve creating livelihood opportunities that get people back to earning incomes. Already, with partners working with affected communities, LWR has helped replace sewing machines for women's sewing groups, and is training a new generation of seamstresses. Another partner, on North Sumatra 's east coast is helping a group make beautiful embroidery wallets and purses and other articles that they will sell in other markets. "Idleness," adds Wetsig, "must be combated as vigorously as we battle disease. Restoring a sense of purpose and the capacity to provide for one's family is foundational to getting these peoples' lives back to a semblance of normalcy."

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