Hello. A belated Happy New Year to you. "Time goes by so slowly....Time goes by so slowly...." sang Madonna in her disco diva outfit. I wonder if she is in a parallel universe? My experience of time has been somewhat different - it has simply flown by (and I have flown through several time zones) since I was last at the Shaftesbury Society in December. I think my last meeting with a church partner was with Christchurch in Barking. I can't believe its nearly two months since I left Shaftesbury. In a few short weeks I've settled into the World Wide Emergencies Unit at HelpAgeInternational and getting to grips with my new role as an Emergencies Programme Coordinator for Disaster Risk Reduction. Now this doesn't mean that I create or coordinate emergencies (although I'm sure that could quite easily happen!). I'm responsible for developing and rolling out a strategy to integrate a disaster risk reduction approach to emergency and development programmes among our 70 partner and affiliate organisations around the world. What does that mean? Well, as far as I can gather disaster risk reduction seems to embrace disaster preparedness, mitigation, emergency response, recovery, safety nets (including social protection and livelihoods) and adapting to climate change...all underpinned by sound development practice. Jolly good! Plenty to be getting on with then....no rest for the wicked eh? In a nut shell it's working with our partners and local communities, especially older people, to identify vulnerabilities to natural and man-made disasters and their solutionsso that they can recover from crises and better withstand future shocks. It's common sense really. Everyone seeks to mitigate risks in their everyday lives.
I've had a warm welcome so far from my new team mates. Some of us have acommon connection - we've worked in Sudan at one time or another and we are refugees from Save the Children. On day two of my new job I was sent off to Brussels with my colleague Susi to attend the annual ECHO partner conference. ECHO is the European Community Humanitarian Office and its now one of the largest donors of humanitarian aid. A couple of hundred aid agencies were represented and I bumped into a few old colleagues over coffee which was nice. The main sessions were in English and French so I made use of my headphones and interpreters. It's just like the EU parliament does on the TV - lots of flags, people in suits sitting in semi-circular rows of seats and Eurospeak. Mind you the coffee was good. I went to a workshop on DRR which was really helpful and networking brought some new contacts to hook up with later. In the evening there was a champagne reception in the Charlemagne building...all very posh. When I got back it was straight into two weeks of induction, meeting loads of people and reading volumes of papers, reports, guidelines etc. I was in mega sponge mode and I'm wondering at what point I will be wrung out so the information will drip, drip, drip through.
After Christmas my boss, Bill said "well Sarah, I think it will be a good idea for you to skate around the various regions and see what HelpAge is doing around the world". Wow - what an opportunity. Time to dust down my rucksack and put my leaving gifts to good use. Last week I returned from my first trip to Sri Lanka and Thailand. I flew to Colombo and stayed in an amazingly beautiful hotel called Mount Lavinia which commanded spectacular views over Colombo and the palm fringed coastline. On the Sunday I joined my colleague Jonathan and his wife Harriet for lunch out on the terrace in hot sunshine...aahhh. Then I spent the afternoon on the beach. The next day we we headed off early by car on a bone shaking road trip through hill country, near Horton plains (tea and coffee growing area), narrowly missing landslips at Ratnapura, snaking round horrifying hairpin bends and on eastwards to Ampara. On the way we saw monkeys, mongeese, eagles and egrets. Ten hours later we arrived just as the sun went down and stayed at a little guesthouse and bumped into the Sally Army. Next day we headed up to Kalmunai and Batticaloa on the east coast through several checkpoints, some army, airforce, policeand military police (although it was hard to tell which was which). This area is incredibly poor and the conflict is ongoing. Fighting was going onto the north of us and many of the local older people we spoke to in thesenior citizens committees were sick and tired of being caught between the lines (LTTE and Gov forces) and had had enough of the shelling. I met our local staff and project partners and saw firsthand the devastating effects of the Tsunami. People are still living in transit camps two years on. I saw 3 villages which had been completely obliterated. All you could see remaining were the foundations of houses and the concrete cylinders of wells. We sat and drank coconut juice (straight out of the coconut) with the Senior Citizen's committee there and I heard their stories. Some of them had received help in the form of latrines, wells, livelihood grants and assistance with obtaining their ID cards which enabled them to access a range of entitlements including better access to health services. Life is tough there but I will never forget their spirit and smiles. Spirituality is highly valued and one of their favourite aspects of the HelpAge programme is facilitating trips to pilgrimage sites. Later one we met up with one lady at her home who had received a loan. She must have been in her sixties or even early seventies. She created a homegarden and makes the best use of her 1 acre and 2 growing seasons and sells surplus produce. She is very enterprising because she doesn't stop there. She weaves rushes into matting and rattan into baskets and sells those. At 4.00am every day she goes out in her boat and casts her net into the lagoon and sells her catch. She has to. She supports 5 children, some of who are studying and several grandchildren. The next day we visited a housing cluster in Kattankudy where we are rehousing 25 older people and their families who had lost everything. After a quick tour we jumped back in the car for another epic road trip to the south coast through rice paddies and elephant country to Tangalle and arrived 7 hours later. Next day and on to Matara, meeting more local staff, project partners and senior citizens committees, while imbibing herbal soup, sweet tea and eating cake. I learnt loads. All too soon we waved goodbye to yet more smiles and headed north, to Colombo arriving several hours later. Jonathan, Harriet,their friends and I went out for dinner in Colombo and the next day I worked in the HelpAge Sri Lanka office and talked with the Chief Exec about the plans for the future and the governments road map on DRR. 4.00am the following morning I left for the airport and a flight to Bangkok. The new airport in Bangkok is incredible. It was completed 6 months ago and is very futuristic, lots of steel and glass...and duty free shopping. I hopped (or rather staggered sleepily) onto the airport bus into the city. Only 2 hours later I arrived at my hotel on Silom Road in the business district (round the corner fromthe Red Light District ...I didn't take a look). The hustle and bustle and pollution was a shock to the system so I decided to chill out at the hotel and watched the sun go down from the roof garden on the 20th floor. The following day, a Sunday, I ventured out from the land of airconditioning on to the street and was hit by a wall of humid heat. I love the tropics! I avoided the myriad of taxi's and tuk tuks as I like to explore on foot. I bumped into a chinese man who had just clocked off duty from work and was on his way home to his wife and new born son. I congratulated him and he gave me some top tourist tips and walked me to the pier. There I booked myself onto a boat trip (got the local rate) and had a slow boat all to myself for a blissful one and a half hour trip up river and down the canals which meandered through rows of wooden houses on stilts and brightly coloured temples, glittering in the sunlight. Children jumped into the water and waved and smiled as we sailed by. Later in the evening I met up with two colleagues from the Asia Pacific Development Centre, Bert and Paul for a briefing. Monday was filled with a quick trip on the Sky train for shopping at MBK and then more meetings.Tuesday, worked and then flew home. Not without experiencing a foot massage before getting on the plane...really relaxing. I slept most of the flight and arrived to snow....brrr. Back in the office the next day and straight into working on a funding bid with team mates for a large grant for a 3 year project to 'strengthen the evidence base for humanitarian action'.
