Campuses unite to aid Sri Lanka:

by Romel Lira and Tomi Fatunde
The Shorthorn (University of Texas at Arlington)
1/27/2005

Looking at a camera Wednesday, Kamudini Fernando told 500 students her story from thousands of miles away.She described the Dec. 26 tsunami that killed at least 200,000 people in South Asia.Fernando, who was traveling with her family on a bus 55 miles away from Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, on the day of the tsunami, said she first noticed something was wrong when she saw men pulling their families out of houses. “I saw a wave, two to three times my height, out of the right corner of my eye,” she said. She said that when her bus attempted to turn around, uprooted houses blocked the path. She and her family were forced to get out of the bus and were swept into the water.She then lost all feeling, expecting to die until she hit a tree root and was able to hold onto it until villagers on a nearby rooftop pulled her to safety. She was able to escape, but two of her relatives who were traveling with her that day were not.Fernando was a participant in a videoconference between Sri Lankan citizens and government officials and students from 11 universities around the world.The UTA chapter of Americans for Informed Democracy joined students and citizens from two AID chapters in the United Kingdom and nine others at American universities. Representatives from one of the universities participated in the videoconference on location in Sri Lanka. The event served as a chance for Sri Lankans to discuss the effect of the tsunami on the inhabitants and infrastructure of the country’s coastal area, as well as challenges to relief and reconstruction efforts. The videoconference is the first in a planned series called Partners for Progress that will allow United States and United Kingdom citizens to speak directly to people in regions affected by the tsunami about the rebuilding effort.AID founder and Executive Director Seth Green, a graduate student at Yale, said the conference was a way to put a human face on an area that few Americans know about. Sharing information about the effects of the tsunami on Sri Lanka can only help show people that there is a way of assisting with recovery efforts, he said.“It exposed the need of Sri Lanka and raised honest awareness of the situation,” he said.Each university was allowed to ask two questions. One from UTA addressed the level of support for orphaned children. The other asked about cooperation with relief efforts between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a rebel organization that has taken over the northeast section of Sri Lanka. Both questions went unanswered by government officials. However, Wijey Wakrema, a former employee of the World Bank Organization, addressed the question about children.Wakrema, who represented a nongovernmental doctors group, said his organization was assisting orphans in the region. He also commented on the Sri Lankan government’s reluctance to answer questions.“There are people working hard on the ground but the resources aren’t there yet,” he said. “The government needs to wake up because there are seven layers of bureaucracy between the reception and distribution of the aid.” Lalith Wikramanayake, a retired government official, responded to Wakrema.“We are a highly politicized society,” he said. “The tsunami has not escaped that.”The government has to make better efforts to discuss civil society with the people affected, he said.Sitting officials were more hesitant to address such questions. They instead focused on the overall economic status of the coastal area and the transition to rebuilding efforts.Segu Zaneer, Sri Lankan Student Association president, echoed the Sri Lankan government’s call for relief. The chemistry graduate student said people want to get involved in relief efforts but they should be cautious about selecting a program they agree with, not just a random organization.Zaneer’s group is donating all money received from on-campus boxes and collected from the Dallas-Fort Worth area mosques, where they have received around $10,000 in a month, to the Sarvodaya Foundation at http://www.sarvodaya.org/.“People just want to help, but sometimes, they just don’t know where to go,” he said.