Sewalanka Foundation: Responding to Immediate Needs

Photo: Amy Ellingson/Mercy Corps

When a disaster devastates a community, many relief organizations immediately direct their attention toward the biggest, most obvious crises: food, shelter, emergency medical aid, and the plight of children. Other, equally pressing needs are sometimes overlooked.

In Sri Lanka, Mercy Corps has partnered with an organization fully aware of these lower-profile needs: the Sewalanka Foundation, one of the country’s most established and successful community-development groups.

Sewalanka has offices in 11 coastal districts impacted by the tsunami that struck on the morning of last December 26. By that same afternoon, Sewalanka volunteers had already started working - sometimes around the clock - to assist the survivors of the catastrophe. Mercy Corps, operating with a grant from the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, made its very first subgrant to Sewalanka, enabling the organization to deliver more than 10,000 packets of sanitary pads to women displaced along the island nation’s east coast.

“Mercy Corps was extremely swift in their response,“ said Ms. Kaushalya Nawaratne, Sewalanka’s director of Women Empowerment Programs. “They visited a number of our district offices, and coordinated with us as we developed micro-project proposals in response to immediate problems -- such as the need for sanitary pads.”

The assistance from Mercy Corps allowed Sewalanka to deliver 3,000 packets to communities near the city of Trincomalee, 2,000 packets to affected areas near Batticaloa, and 5,000 packets to displaced women in the Ampara district.

Mrs. Rajashwari, a displaced resident of Batticaloa, summed up the situation neatly. “We lost everything we had in the house: our clothes and all of our belongings were washed away by the wave,” she said. “Our family has been living in Ramakrishna Viyalay for three weeks now. While the government and others have provided us with clothing and food, the women here are grateful to Sewalanka for providing us with sanitary pads. Otherwise, our situation would have been very difficult.”

Since that initial grant, Mercy Corps has continued to cultivate a strong relationship with Sewalanka. Jim Jarvie, a consultant working with Mercy Corps in Ampara, says the synergy between the two organizations helps Mercy Corps operate more effectively in almost all areas. “They’re our eyes, ears, and often our legs, on the ground in these communities.”