Tsunami: A few updates from people out there...

Subject: one way to help

Yesterday, Steve and I went out to Olcott Kuppam, the fishing village where he teaches 5th and 6th Standard (grade) students. We got off the bus and walked towards the beach. There were police everywhere, and people were running from the beach with bags of their possessions. Apparently, there was a warning of another tsunami coming, and the authorities were evacuating everyone along the coast. We made our way towards Steve's school, and found many of his students. We learned that much of their village was destroyed, many of them were homeless, but there were very few deaths. One child lost her grandmother, another man reported that his father had died.

The children seemed so resilient--they talked of their loss of home so casually. Perhaps because they have so little to begin with or perhaps it still seemed an adventure to be camping out at the high school grounds. In spite of all their losses, one child gave us each one of his precious cookies; another offered us some of their limited drinking water. We felt so humbled by this generosity. All the children were so happy that Steve had come.

The day after the tsunami hit, Margeret, the headmistress of the school, had come and personally gone around making an inventory of all the children, assuring that all were alive. The NGO where she and Steve work was at the high school, organizing relief efforts in terms of food and water, and helping the families to decide where to relocate. The stretch of coast where they lived is no longer an option, and the government will only provide a small amount of money for families to rebuild.

Many of you have written asking where you can help. There are so many organizations working to provide relief to the survivors. One suggestion if you want to help in southern India, is to donate to Asha (the NGO mentioned above). The website to learn more about their work and make a donation is:

http://www.ashanet.org/

Wishing you all peace this New Year.

Liz Stevens, MSW. India Project Manager. I-TECH--International Training & Education Center on HIV

2.) Gyanendra Ghale who works for the WHO and helps with KRK in Nepal

Dear all,  I am dr. aruna uprety from chennai and working for Oxfam as a health adviser. I  just had an  assessment of the area. The medical team from the government and the Private hospital is doing a good job now.

They will need more support in later phase for shelter,  water etc. I will be available to give you any details we have here . please let me know. aruna uprety .

Dear Dr. Aruna, Thanks for replying. Our friends would be pleased to hear from you about the first hand ground situation.

Yes, people need more help in the later phase of the situation, especially in the rehabilitation and reconstruction phases.

Take care and best regards, Gyanendra

To Give:

Previous Update

Note there are many good places to give... here is one..

As you all are aware that thousands of people have been killed and injured by the recent Tsunami hit in coastal areas in India and in several South Asian nations. As we do care of these needy people, let us try to help them as much as possible.

W all agree with this idea of helping the needy people we can do so through one of the NGOs that are already active "on ground" providing much needed relief support to the victims. The one I know of is a Dutch NGO called "Medecins Sans Frontiers and whose Head of Mission is called Mr. Stuart Zimble (who is a husband of my collegues working in WHO) and their website address is: www.msf.org.  If some financial support can be solicited and collected from our mountain lovers and KFK's supporters through everestnews.com, that can be channeled to India office through their head office based in Europe.

Stuart is already in the ground providing help to the victims..

Have a happy new year 2005 to you all.

Best Regards,

Gyanendra (December 2004)

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