Rebuilding communities

10 January 2006

One year on from the South Asian Tsunami, Pamela Nowicka meets YMCA Base Co-ordinator Charith de Silva, whose work with his community is providing for present needs and preparing for a better future.

Y Care International’s partner YMCA in Matara, Sri Lanka, offers a model of post-Tsunami rebuilding work. But not just of structures – like houses, or providing help in the form of grants to help with small business set-up or education – but in building that most tenuous but vital intangible... community.

Enthusiasm and maturity
And instrumental in that process is the combination of youthful enthusiasm and empathetic maturity found in 22-year-old Charith de Silva, the YMCA Base Co-ordinator for Galle and Matara.

Charith has been involved in the YMCA in his native Badulla in central Sri Lanka since he was 15, firstly as a youth member, then working his way up to Youth President.

“My father was a warrant officer in the Sri Lankan army. He’d been working with the YMCA for 10-15 years and he encouraged me to get involved by going to a national camp. There were so many opportunities – badminton, Christmas programmes, youth camps. I enjoyed myself very much. Most of my friends are Buddhist and most of them came with me after I joined.

More than just work
Charith was working as a volunteer in Kalmunai, when, shortly after the Tsunami, he was given the post of Base Co-ordinator. “My job is about Tsunami relief work. But the YMCA is not just for Tsunami work, it’s for everything: youth and child rights work, peace building, awareness building and building a YMCA identity.

“For the time being though we must focus on Tsunami projects like home recovery, educational support, house repairing and seed capital. After the Tsunami we did immediate relief and now we’re involved in mid- and long-term projects.

“When I first arrived here, four or five days after the Tsunami, it was like a desert. There was a bad smell, people wandering around, crying, laughing, dead bodies being burned on rubber tyres because they were decomposing.

Focus on community
“The YMCA is a community-based organisation, so we don’t focus on individuals, we focus on the community. With our scholarship scheme we give individuals money for extra classes, so they can pass exams, get a good job, look after their family and also help society.

“With the seed capital projects, by giving money to people who had their own business before the Tsunami, they can set them up again, look after their children and save money in the bank.”

In the small fishing town of Matara, where Charith is based, the YMCA has provided 30 people with seed capital, helped 60 students with scholarship fees, has 24 house building projects and 30 home repair projects.

Challenge of community building
And for Charith, for whom the epithet ‘an old head on young shoulders’ seems tailor-made, the challenge of building community is something he clearly relishes. “I’ve had a lot of experience with the YMCA,” he explains, “practically and mentally – how to build up people’s body, mind and spirit. I’ve participated in many different programmes so it’s not difficult for me to work with many different kinds of people.

“In the YMCA movement we try to treat people equally and in a just way. There are 37 YMCAs in Sri Lanka, mostly in the east and north. There are YMCAs in war areas, so they are a great bridge between Tamils and Singhalese.”

Looking ahead
So what of the future, against a backdrop of civil war, the after effects of the Tsunami and a conflict between Christians and Buddhists which has recently seen churches burned in Colombo?

Charith is already planning ahead. “The Tsunami didn’t focus on Tamils or Singahese, Christians or Buddhists, it hit everyone. I believe in God, but I respect other religions – most of my friends and some of my relatives are Buddhists. But the Tsunami projects won’t be there forever. We need regular YMCA activities, like child rights programmes.

“The YMCA didn’t just come here after the Tsunami. It’s been functioning for 150 years. I want to work with the YMCA forever! I want to build the YMCA movement to serve people by community building, to build up body, mind and spirit…that’s the meaning of the triangle. I think I’ll do that. Why not?”