Struggle for normal life

Cyclone Sidr ravaged the coastal areas of Bangladesh, reminding us that the natural disaster, given the geographical position, is an unavoidable part of the country. As in other natural disasters in the past, many people lost their resources and lives. People from home and aboard immediately responded to help the cyclone-affected people. Different agencies pioneered in helping the victims with relief and rehabilitation assistances. However, as time went by, gradually the affected people were becoming oblivions. We supposed that they got enough assistances, and now they must began their lives on their own. This was our wrong assumption because we contemplated the situation according to our experience in developed countries, but we failed to do so according to people’s experience, who encountered the ferocity loosing their many valuables. According to my visit experience, people are still struggling, and their effort is far away from achieving their normal life. They must have it--it is their basic right. Different agencies should planned long-term development programmes taking on board people’s ideas about achieving their normal life.

Sidr: a vehement cyclone
On 15 November 2007, in the evening, Sidr brought holocaust to the districts near to the Bay of Bengal. The people in Patuakhali, Barguna and Jhalokati districts, in particular, experienced the impact made of devastating 150 mph wind and monstrous 8 to 9 feet wave surge. The cyclone claimed a good number of human lives: officially, 3,447 and unofficially about 10,000. Although the number is less to the number 140,000 which caused by the 1991 cyclone, the Sidr’s effect was much intensive on resources. Bangladesh government’s agriculture ministry reported that eleven districts of coastal area lost about 95 percent of crops, cattle, and shrimp farming, a common practice in coastal area. As the Sundarban, the mangrove forest, took the first blow, its damage is extensive, and people believe that it would take 40 years to recover the loss to the forest.

Remarkable assistances
Response with supports was appreciating. Considering the cyclone’s strength, death toll could be more unless people were made aware before the strike, according to the opinion of NGO officials. Government, NGOs and civil societies used radios and mobile loudspeakers to tell the people about the imminent assault of the cyclone and advised them to take refuge in the nearby multipurpose cyclone shelters, which of 1,800 were available along the Bay of Bengal’s coastline. Moreover, the field workers of these agencies individually engaged themselves to take the people from the path of the storm to the cyclone shelters. As early as two days after the disaster, from both home and abroad, many benign people of various backgrounds, forgetting their own comfort, poured into difficult to travel affected areas to help the affected people with emergency food, water and medicine. The caretaker government not only engage themselves in providing emergency services, they also helped the foreign people coming into the country with help by relaxing legal requirements and by facilitating all kinds of assistances for NGOs and Civil Societies. Additionally, the regular armies of the country commissioned relief and rehabilitation activities, as well as assisted other agencies to hand in emergency services systematically. Presently, the successful relief activities have rolled into exclusive rehabilitation programmes aiming towards long-term development activities which are the focus of this report to investigate its appropriateness considering affected people’s target – getting back their normal lives.

Visiting the areas
From the day of Sidr strike, from the UK, I was gathering information about the Sidr affected people and blogging as report. I chose the Bengali newspapers published on the net because they were in advance in highlighting affected people’s voice than the English newspapers. Even though choosing the right newspapers, I was noticing that the frequency of giving the affected people’s news was reducing, and finally, they almost ceased to stop within the six months of the cyclone strike. Retrospectively, according to my previous experience of working amongst affected people of natural disasters, it is not a fault of the newspapers, it is a problem with the assistances that evaporate as soon relief period comes to an end, and such an example can be found in ‘The forgotten survivors of Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh’, reported by Mahtab Haider. My learning is that as soon relief period stops, people’s confidence level goes low, work on getting back their normal life does not get momentum, depending on sporadic rehabilitation activities offered by various agencies. This is a vulnerable period. They are almost on their own to work, combating various vices: social, political and administrative discriminations. This reminiscence influenced me to visit the affected areas and learn about the people’s struggle to get back their normal lives. On request, Shafiqur Rahman Mahfuz, Executive Director, SANGJOG, generously arranged a programme. To follow the programme, on 9 September 2008, I arrived in the Dhaka city, a megalopolis of 20 million people, and held by recurrent vehicle gridlock, baked in heat with dust and humid.

Perception behind the visit
My idea was to explore if post-cyclone development activities support the affected people’s normal life. As rule of thumb, not embarking on any strict measurement, people’s normal life is the life of a person who used to lead before the cyclone, and for the study’s convenience, with due respect to their loss, affected rich people were kept out of this rule. In other words, the normal life of a cyclone battered person was to come back to a position from where he could support his family with socially accepted basic needs. He would have a job that would bring a regular wages, enough to manage basic commodities for his family but, perhaps, not enough to do savings. Poverty was in the family, but everyone was aware to defeat it by remaining alert and active for necessary actions, for example, spending money by setting priorities. Given the prevailed vulnerable situation in the area, the ongoing development activities were taken as the variables of the study for achieving affected people’s normal life. The selected variables were housing, economic activities, medical services, confidence building, common facilities, administrative channels and migration. With these guidelines, I started travelling around Patualkhali district, one of the severely affected areas, and interviewing the affected people, public representatives, NGO officials and government personnel.

Learning from the people

Housing:
The donated houses or house building materials were in different numbers, shapes and sizes. People received them from various agencies like BRAC, CARITAS, RED CRECENT, SAP, UNDP, and UNICEF. On the whole, the size of the houses was 12’X16’, having a semi-concrete foundation holding 10 to 12 pillars and a Corrugated Iron (CI) Sheet roof on the top. Most of these houses had no walls, and responsibility of providing walls was left with the people. Nevertheless, people also received houses complete with bamboo walls, and wooden doors and windows, for instance, such houses came from Muslim Aid and Oxfam, which were appreciated by the people. Many people got houses neither with nor without walls, and the same with doors and windows, they only received 5 pieces of bamboos and 8 pieces of CI sheets. These materials were inadequate either to erect houses or makeshift, and the people sold out such materials to buy other prioritised items for the family. Their reply was, ‘we had nothing to eat, so we sold the materials’. Vulnerable people hardly can contemplate when procuring basic needs become first priority.

Economic activities:
People received different resources to start their successful economic activities. These resources came to them as relief, not as credit or loan which might take them to go for repayment. BRAC provided individual people with free goats and cows to bring economic benefit at individual level. They also gave away tractors for easy cultivation though these machines were given to the groups of affected people to encourage economic-based group activities. SAP came up with ‘food for work’ and ‘cash for work’ programmes to build and repair damaged roads and play ground. This is a common and effective ways to engage people in wage earning system during rehabilitation period. SAP also encouraged vegetable and fruit gardening in homesteads to supplement family income while the produces would also fulfil family the need of family consumption. Correspondingly, Bangladesh Army provided the affected Fishermen with free fishing boats and nets, so that they could immediately catch fish going to deep sea and sell them in local market. The affected people who were bearing credits from different NGOs, they did not have to make any repayment for five to six months, which boosted different economic activities. Although many people were able to get hold of such promising economic benefits, some were succumb into bondage labour, for example, Shah Alam of the case study. To encourage agriculture based economic activities, SANGJOG, UNDP, Muslim Aid, SAP, and the Prothom Alo (a Bengali newspaper) provided the people with vegetable seeds, saplings, chemical and organic fertilizer, and agricultural equipments. Nevertheless, more concrete assistances could be provided to the people that would involve the people for long term social development, for example, tagging the affected people in share-cropping with land owners.

Medical service:
Most neglected area is healthcare. Although immediate after the disaster, there were many mobile medical units serving in the areas, now-a-days people are in need of long lasting medical services. There are no medical services in Char Momtaj, Moudubi, char Biswas, Chaltabunia, and Char Kasem islands. Officially, there are doctors appointed in these places, but unofficially, no one live and serve the people living there. The doctors live in Galachipa Upazilla town, even though they remain invisible in the town. As a result, people suffer from doing lengthy travelling to Galachipa town and not receiving on time medical treatment and advice. There was an incident in that a woman lost her baby because she was delayed by hectic travelling from her island to Galachipa town to see the doctor. Ironically, no medical practitioners, paramedics and health educationists work in the areas. Although people lack this valuable service from the time before Sidr, presently, it is an imperative question: if they now could be assured with the service. Providing training on health education to local young people could be a possible reply. It is common to observe that NGOs run health education as part of medical assistance programme. I would think, replication of such programme could be helpful to solve the problem of medical services in the areas. Additionally, another setback comes from the sanitation programme. Sanitation programme suffered with mismanagement even though it is considered as a prioritised programme. To facilitate the programme, government health department at Upazilla level distribute toilet-installing materials among the people. According to the programme, the affected people of the area were supposed to receive five concrete rings and one slab to build a toilet, but in practice, this system had a twist. The people received only two instead of five, in addition to a slap, and the saved rings were available in black-market. This mismanagement also influenced the toilet-material distribution programme of NGOs.

Confidence building:
Re-building confidence to come out of the shock of the cyclone was not in the areas. This was obvious that many people lost their dear ones, and they were helping themselves to leave behind the shocking experience. Older people said that they had passed through many such shocking experiences which made them courageous to deal with the present situation. I also came to know that the pressure to re-build or to re-start the life made them forget the pain of the lost. However, many people said that like a flush, the painful memory suddenly appeared on their mind making them vulnerable for some time. Although in the post-disaster situation, material-help gets first preference, mental-help should also get the importance, which in fact would turn to be a valuable boost for the overall development of affected people. A NGO high official suggested that if somehow consciously affected people could be attached to rehabilitation or post-cyclone activities, the problem of mental depression could be automatically dealt with. Given my past experience, I would suggest to include a topic on psychological recovery along with on-going adult literacy programme, which would help the people to prepare mentally before the cyclone strike.

Common facilities:
Necessary common facilities are there, and people require more of them. Cyclone shelters in coastal areas occupy a strong position by their life-saving standard. I mentioned earlier that thousands of people saved their lives by taking shelter in the shelters situated along the coastal areas, and you may have some ideas about their structure and multi-purpose use, if you give a search for ‘cyclone shelter’ in Google. They are not only the place to save life, they are also a place to celebrate birth, for example, baby Sidr born while mother took refuge in a shelter, CAFOD reports. While I continued my visit from Patuakhali town to Kuakata, an attractive seaside area, I saw some schools and living dwellings built considering cyclone and flood. I noticed from my bus a NGO was using a school/cyclone shelter as a centre and distributing monthly ration to the people. On my way to Mishri Para village from Kuakata, on left hand side, I saw simple long terrace houses built on long and strong pillars, which looked in good condition and definitely survived the Sidr’s onslaught. But when I arrived in Mishri Para village, I did not see any cyclone shelter, not even in five mile radius. People informed me that they survived taking shelter in the strong houses of the rich people, though rage of the cyclone was not strong the village. I felt the necessity of a cyclone shelter in the area. Another important common facility is deep tube-well to pump up sweet drinking water while undrinkable saline water is everywhere in Patuakhali district. I observed many people, especially women and children, travelled long distance to fetch drinking water from the nearest tubewell, and not only they travelled long distance, also they spent long hours to maintain queue to reach to the tubewell. There is a great necessity of more deep tube-wells in the district. Among the public resources, Government and NGOs put emphasis on re-building educational institutions and prayer centres, and I saw them in good shape.

Functioning administrative channels:
The functionality of different channels delivering services to the affected people has improved but more to do for further development. According to all interviewees, the government and NGOs channels were serving the people actively, and the reason behind this success was fast and organised actions. Many government agencies, NGOs and civil societies formed coordination committee at national and local levels and went for action, which was recognised as non-overlapping, economic and justified. The major factor of this noteworthy service was the present caretaker government’s honest and direct actions. Additionally, the officials in the present government administration had no chance to indulge themselves in corruption and mismanagement. Nevertheless, there are some reported information that do not totally support the efficiency of the serving channels. Since the beginning of the relief activities, various reports on mismanagement of relief resources and information appeared in the newspapers. As a support to this argument, we may take note of the formally mentioned toilet rings and slabs mismanagement. Furthermore, I noticed many people in Choto Bighai in the state of confusion regarding their house building, and till the time of my visit they were living in temporary makeshifts. They informed me that according the commitment of the local government authority, they were supposed to get their houses built with the grant from the Saudi government, but it was not happening, and they were not clear whether they would get the assistance or not.

Migration tendency:
The prevailed situation in the cyclone-stricken area created a tendency of undercurrent migration. We know that people migrate for ‘pull’ and ‘push’ factors, and both the factors nestled in the affected area. Before the cyclone, many people had migrated from the area to the cities to earn income. When they came to know because of the cyclone a sudden flow of relief and rehabilitation created a pool of resources (pull factor) in their area, they came back to take share of their pie, realising the income in the cities was less than what they would get as relief and rehabilitation assistances. On the other hand, some middle class people migrated to the cities because they found the area prone to natural disasters (push factor) though they came back now and then to look after their properties in the area. Additionally, more of them were thinking to leave the area permanently because nowadays the seawater was increasingly overflowing their areas, which was not the case five to seven years ago.

Normal life: A distant dream
Admittedly, many relief assistances, including on-going rehabilitation assistances, went into Sidr affected areas, but none of these assistances is providing assurance of people’s normal life. Assistances came to them not with the assurance to take them back to their normal life but to over come a situation created by the cyclone. Helping agencies—government, NGOs, civil societies and individuals—provided the assistances according to their financial, work-force and administrative capacities, but not provided to fulfil the real need of the people. Even though the assurance of some NGOs with long term development programmes and the government with administrative assistances, the affected people are leading unsure life, they do not know how they would support their families in future. Nevertheless, this frustration can be minimise at great deal, if not be eliminated for good. A simple way to say that for the affected people NGOs, government and civil societies must have their development plan by considering the needs, in participation of the affected people, making a target of people’s normal life.