Empowering Disaster-Affected Communities for Long-Term Reconstruction: Intervening in Sri Lanka After the Tsunami

Abstract

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami highlighted the importance of interdependencies between nations, delivery of humanitarian aid in an empowering manner, and long-term reconstruction. I examine relationships between overseas actors and local residents in tsunami-affected villages in Sri Lanka in a project initiated by the International Association of Schools of Social Work through its Rebuilding People's Lives After Disasters Network and another based on an institutional endeavour supported by Durham University because these sought to empower local communities through local, egalitarian partnerships. Lacking sufficient educational resources, capacity building in social work education has become a long-term objective.

KEYWORDS:

• capacity building
• community empowerment
• disasters
• exploitative practices
• humanitarian aid
• internationalizing practices
• reconstruction
• resilience
• social work
• tsunami

Notes

¹The ESRC Project is a 3-year project based at Durham University in the United Kingdom. It began in early 2009. Lena Dominelli is the Principal Investigator. The remainder of the research team consists of Co-Investigator Joy Palmer-Cooper, a UK-based research fellow, a project secretary, and several local researchers from Sri Lanka.

²IASSW has been funding several small international projects that have been considering disaster interventions and curricula and is working with other players to improve social work education on this topic (see www.iassw-aiets.org).