Its 11.35 PM, we returned to Polonnaruwa for the night. The rain hasn’t stopped. It is not strong but uniform as a scale which does not make water recede. The environment is very cold. I can hear rain drops. It must be really hard for children who sleep on top of desks in schools. They don’t have beds and no bed sheets. They came camps leaving their clothes and bed sheets behind.
When I asked what the children need, they said school bags. It was first strange to me but we found out that they left homes in the night when the water was rising and their was no time to collect valuables. They just came to the camp.
The impact of this disaster is more on economic aspects rather than on human lives like in tsunami. Hence the real impact is yet to come. The loss of their harvest when it’s to be harvested is a major blow. As the irrigation systems have been damaged it’s unlikely that they can harvest next season. The first job would be repairing and re-buling the irrigation system before they can harvest again. Probably at least another season would be lost.
The question is how they would survive without harvesting a season.
According to the Public Health Officials cleaning the wells would be a major task after the floods. Government seems to have good systems in place to avoid spreading of deceases. But it will be a massive challenge to re-build economies. Comparing to tsunami , these floods are a silent destrpyer of economy. The damage to paddy lands will soon impact on rising rice prices in April and beyond. These were the best paddy lands in the country.
It’s important media to see beyond water into life’s of people and economies. CSR can help sending their economists to understand the inter-dependent economies of the flooded areas. The effect of these floods will soon be felt in country with possible food shortages. Unless we are able to build the economy of the flooded areas, the impact of economy will be spread to the country. That’s why we see these floods as a salient
Destroyer.
The government has deployed three forces, police and health officials and provides food for victims. Health issues seem under control in the locations we visited, but they need assistance to continue support.
We did not see any CSR contributions coming in like in tsunami. These are the customers of big corporation, hence they have a responsibility to attend to the needs and be responsive. In a flood it’s not only food, shelter and clothes they need. They need new knowledge to re-build; we wonder where it would be coming from. We see that civil society seems ignorant of fellow citizens, leaving everything to the government. This is growing to be a national problem directly affecting economy, although many not aware of, including us. We learnt only when we visited.
WE THINK THAT CORPORATES SHOULD COME FORWARD. IT IS THE REAL CSR. BECAUSE THEY ARE CUSTOMERS AND DEFINITELY WILL IMPACT IN PROFITS.
Please come and see , then only you will know.
Where is the tsunami spirit?
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