Red Cross rebuilding lives

Most of the money raised for the Red Cross Tsunami Appeal here will be given to the International Red Cross for use in cleaning up water and sanitation, rebuilding the livelihoods of people and possibly building houses.

Red Cross assessors in Sri Lanka and the Indonesia province of Banda Aceh are expected to announce soon what money should be spent on for long-term recovery plans.

Douglas Clark, who was part of an initial emergency response team sent to Sri Lanka, arrived home last week.

He said many in Sri Lanka were still in emergency accommodation, including camps, tents, schools and temples. The Red Cross usually focused on health care and preventing disease by ensuring clean water supplies.

"But this situation is different from most because there is a lot of money and there is a problem with housing, so I think we will be more involved in rebuilding houses, which we do not usually get into.

"The Sri Lankan Red Cross was talking about building 15,000 houses, but we will not know until we see the recovery team's recommendation."

Mr Clark expected that the Red Cross would also support any decisions of the Sri Lankan Government, such as whether to put up prefabricated houses and other temporary accommodation or to leave people in emergency accommodation until permanent homes were built.

He said Red Cross teams in Sri Lanka were working on health, psychological and social counselling, and restoring people's livelihoods.

"It's easy to put up bricks and mortar and give them somewhere to live, but there are fishermen and a lot of carpenters who have lost their livelihoods.

"They are poor people with no capital to start again."