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ABSTRACT
In December 2004, the massive Indian Ocean Tsunami hit the coastal areas of Sri Lanka causing a devastating impact on the lives of people. National and International humanitarian aid received in the aftermath was unprecedented. Among this was a team of professors and students from the faculty of Social Work, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, who conducted a summer camp as a social work practice project together with Sri Lankan undergraduates. The objective was to initiate a project for support based on an action research model adopting a short-term design built upon a needs assessment. While critically looking at the process of international support in the context of country’s long history of state welfare and community support systems, the paper also focuses on one major lapse among others, negligence of people’s needs during disaster interventions. The paper attempts to view this situation in relation to the absence of an established social work profession in the country and examines the applicability of an international framework and concepts of social work in developing academic and professional social work in a context as diverse as Sri Lanka.
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POVZETEK
Decembra 2004 je močan cunami zadel obalna območja Šrilanke, kar je imelo katastrofalne posledice za življenje ljudi. Domača in mednarodna pomoč, ki je sledila, je bila brez primere. V tem okviru je skupina učiteljev in študentk Fakultete za socialno delo Univerze v Ljubljani skupaj s šrilanškimi študentkami pripravila poletni tabor socialnodelovne prakse. Zastavljen je bil kot projekt podpore, oblikovan pa po modelu kratkoročne akcijske raziskave s ciljem ocene potreb. Toda njegov vpliv na izobraževanje iz socialnega dela na Šrilanki je bil dolgoročen. Avtorica je kritična do procesa mednarodne pomoči, saj ima Šrilanka dolgo zgodovino državnih in skupnostnih sistemov podpore, med večje pomanjkljivosti slednjih pa šteje zanemarjanje potreb in to naveže na odsotnost socialnega dela kot uveljavljenega poklica na Šrilanki. Na tem ozadju avtorica prouči uporabnost mednarodnega okvira in konceptov socialnega dela za razvoj akademskega in poklicnega socialnega dela, ki je lahko v razgibanem šrilanškem kontekstu pomembno socialno-ekonomsko stičišče.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to express immense gratitude to the research team for generously sharing with her their valuable field experiences and field notes, on which this paper is based: University of Ljubljana team leaders Prof. Bogdan Lesnik and Dr Mojca Urek and the team, Andreja Ivanuic, Anita Sobar, Maja Petrovic Gaspirc, Mateja Ravnik, Silvija Lesnjek and Verica Petrova; and the University of Colombo team leaders Jagath Wellawatta, NiroshaNilmali and the team, Ayesha Liyanaarachchi, Anuruddhika Rajapaksha, Champika Priyadarshani, Chandima Jayasena, Gayani Kumari, H. M. Achala Lakmali, H.R. Malkanthi, Handun Athukorala, Prashangani Dunuge, Praveena Rajkobal, Rathnika Sanjeewanie, Ruwani Surangika and Thushari Fonseka.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributor
Subhangi M. K. Herath is a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Colombo and was the former head of the same department. She obtained her doctorate from the University of Waterloo, Canada in 1997 and completed her postdoctoral studies at the University of Sussex, UK. She was the key person in introducing social work studies at the Department of Sociology at the University of Colombo with the academic collaboration of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Notes
1. This paper is based on the study referred to in this paper.
2. In a report submitted in 1960 to the Chairman, Board of Governors, Institute of Social Work by Professor E. L. Hooker, UN Advisor on Social Work training in Ceylon emphasises the barriers for incorporating social work education in the university education system in the country; mainly, the lower level qualifications required to enter the institute, absence of a full pledged degree programme and the practical difficulties in coordinating field training and classroom courses (Ranaweera, Citation2003, pp. 379–382). However, although a four-year degree programme was introduced in 2008, the institute never came under the purview of the Ministry of Higher Education and continue to cater to the needs of the Ministry of Social Services.
3. National disaster management plan had already been developed at the time; however, it had not obtained cabinet approval by the time of the Tsunami. Nevertheless, a number of committees were appointed to oversee and implement the processes, yet the ground level coordination posed numerous problems.
4. The field data presented in this paper are based on discussions with students and team leaders who conducted this research and their field notes. Author’s involvement at the initial study was not direct. Author conducted another much larger study few months later in the same area which included the particular village where the UC-UL project was carried out (Herath, Citation2006). Author’s active involvement with the project began with the initial discussions on the social work study program in which the author took the leading role. Author would like to express immense gratitude to the research team for generously sharing their field data and experiences with the author.
5. The problem of obtaining substantial funding was discussed in detail by one of the researchers at a conference presentation.
6. The article is based on the research study to which this paper makes references.
7. Writing on the adaptability of participant observation in a two-week social work research study the authors say, “Though it doesn’t cover the full scale of the group’s endeavours in the village, a closer reference for this report is (mutatis mutandis) the anthropological method of participant observation as expounded by de Munck (1998). It was precisely the participants’ perspective that the group aimed to grasp and came to advocate” (Lešnik and Urek, 2010, p. 274).
8. It is important to note here that a researcher needs to be mindful of the fact that marginal knowledge of an unfamiliar setting could lead to superficial preconceptions as evinced by many anthropological studies. Social work faces a greater risk in this context as research is intensely linked with response and action. Nevertheless, the research process itself could be seen as a testing ground for such preconceptions/hypotheses.
9. See Lešnik and Urek (Citation2010, p. 273) for a discussion on this.
10. Kelegama (Citation2006) emphasises this as one of the key contributing factors to the dwindling of post 1977 economic growth.