Surapong Sumalee has tears in his eyes as he recalls the day, four years ago, when a huge wall of seawater crashed in on his village and destroyed his life. His wife was swept away, along with six other relatives. The village and its economy were devastated. It took years of work and some fundamental re-thinking before hope returned.
Natural Disaster Devastation
Surapong lives in a coastal community in the province of Krabi in southern Thailand. On 26 December 2004 a tsunami – a giant wave caused by an earthquake under the sea near Indonesia – crashed its way northwards along the coast of Malaysia, Thailand and Burma, and to the west as far as Sri Lanka and India. Thousands died, houses and roads were washed away and communities were torn apart.
The tsunami was big news for weeks, and international humanitarian organizations helped deal with the gruesome task of identifying bodies and the immediate problems of health, shelter, repairing infrastructure and restoring water supplies. But as the TV crews and emergency aid agencies left, the lasting damage to local livelihoods remained.
Damaged Livelihoods and Indebtedness
Fishing boats and equipment were lost and local fish habitats were destroyed. Tourists stayed away for most of the next year, undercutting the business of the hotels, restaurants, handicraft shops and travel and leisure services that local people had come to rely on for jobs and markets. Many of them, often the most talented and energetic, left the area to find work in Bangkok and other cities. Those who remained quickly ran up debts to loan sharks; interest rates as high as 20 percent per month meant their debts soon became crippling burdens that, without help, would prove almost impossible to throw off.
“We were not poor before the tsunami,” says Surapong, “but the tsunami made us poor and the future looked very bad for us. There are still villages around here that are much worse off then they were.”
Tsunami Rehabilitation Project
But some communities got lucky. A handful of non-government organisations committed themselves to a longer period of rehabilitation to return selected villages to the living standards that they enjoyed before the tsunami struck. With funds from the European Commission and guided by the state enterprise Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, the NGOs have helped almost 200 communities re-establish themselves. Surapong’s village was one of them.
They did it not by so much by providing money and physical assistance. Instead the focus was on helping villagers learn, or re-learn, skills of cooperation and discipline in their personal behaviour, skills that had been gradually eroded in the years before the tsunami.
Micro-finance Organisations
“We set up a village bank,” explains Sukon Namsai, headman of another village assisted by the project. “Members commit to saving at least 50 baht ($1) each week. We use the money to provide small loans for people with medical bills or other emergencies. It helps them avoid the money lenders.”
The village savings banks may also serve as a foundation for attracting matching funds from the local BAAC branch. As the volume of funds has grown, village banks have been able to finance small enterprises that villagers have started, guided by the NGOs. Identifying and supporting these enterprises has often had social and environmental dimensions as a way of further strengthening the communities. Participation by women and businesses set up by youth groups have been especially encouraged.
Village Enterprises
Wanchana Suksabai heads a business that makes organic fertiliser for sale in neighbouring villages. Sawanraya Jeysamor is the leader of a women’s group that manufactures chilli paste. Jantanee Yahprang is the leader of a group of students who are raising fish in cages in the nearby estuary. Aporn Noosong and her friends are running a fertiliser cooperative, buying in bulk, supplying local farmers and offering technical guidance to avoid damaging the soil. Other groups produce batik and plan local community tourism enterprises based on the natural beauty of the area.
So far, so good, for the communities and enterprises like these involved in the project. Some say their incomes and living standards are already better than before the tsunami, but most have still not fully recovered. Sustainability will be the real measure of success for the project. Will the village banks and business ventures survive when the NGOs leave in the coming months?
Surapong is hopeful, but philosophical. “Maybe some of our ideas will not work,” he says. “But we already got rid of our informal debts and we are stronger as a community and better set to benefit from new opportunities as they come along. I think we are now in good shape whatever the future may bring.”
Paul Lightfoot - I lived and worked in Asia for many years, managing and monitoring rural development projects for a living and using that experience to ...
