In the shadow of housing

Heidi Thorsen reflects on why helping communities rebuild after the tsunami is about more than just building houses, and asks what it really means to be someone's neighbour

“So, how many houses have you built?”

This is the question most people ask me when I tell them I work for the tsunami team at CAFOD.

With the media coverage of ruined houses, mountains of rubble and destroyed towns in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami in Asia back in 2005, it might seem inevitable that the focus would be on house reconstruction.

What do you do when the land people owned is no longer there, having been swallowed up by the waves and suddenly left permanently under water?

When considering the amount of work and help needed, one obvious, tangible need was that of houses. New houses or repaired houses for everyone who needed them.

Complex issues

Although the objective might seem plain enough we soon found ourselves immersed in the complexities of the situation.

What do you do when the land people owned is no longer there, having been swallowed up by the waves and left permanently under water?

How do you prove land ownership when your house and all your documents were lost in the waves, as was the government building in town which stored the other copies?

How do you know where the boundaries went when all the older people and village leaders with the knowledge died in the disaster?

We are now over two years on and I can tell you that challenges were overcome and houses were built in their thousands

How do you rebuild a village when the road has been destroyed and there is no way of getting to it other than by helicopter?

Where do you get new land from to replace that lost to the sea?

Although these challenges were overcome and houses were built in their thousands across India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, it is about more than building.

The second question people ask me when I tell them what I do for a living is: “Are you still working on the tsunami after all this time?”

It seems to me that people view emergency or humanitarian work differently to development work. In a sense this is true, as the kind of work CAFOD and similar organisations do is often divided into three different categories.

In practice however, there are no such clear cut divisions between the different types of work we do.

The first is relief work, which focuses on the immediate needs of humans to help them stay alive. We started doing this immediately after the tsunami by providing water, food and tents to survivors.

The second category is the rehabilitation phase. Once the immediate needs of people have been met, longer term work is carried out.

We have been focusing on rehabilitation work in Aceh over the past two years - houses and schools have been built and repaired, fishing boats replaced and rice fields cleared.

Dealing with root causes

The third category is what we call development work. This is often described as longer term work which responds to an ongoing need.

This kind of work tries to deal with the root causes of disadvantage and is what we have now started working on in Aceh.

It includes helping farmers develop and sustain their farms, helping people start their own business, building wells, trying to reduce peoples’ vulnerability to disasters, helping people advocate for their rights such as education and women’s rights - the list goes on.

I can best describe it as the fact that no place was a blank sheet of paper before a disaster.

In practice however, there are no such clear cut divisions between the different types of work we do. I can best describe it as the fact that no place was a blank sheet of paper before a disaster.

Whatever happens and wherever it happens the place has a history. In Aceh, an internal struggle between groups wanting independence and the national government had gone on for decades.

Many people had suffered due to the conflict and were already unsure of their future. In a place like Aceh, the work we do should not simply cover one of the three phases - it needs to be about more than just new houses.

Being a true neighbour

Large amounts of the funds CAFOD received from its supporters in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami in December 2004 have gone to building houses and schools, but some funds are still being spent.

Five years, because being someone’s neighbour is about more than just having your house next to theirs.

We are committed to following up this work and to supporting the people of Aceh over the next five years.

Five years, because working in solidarity means that we are there for the long run not just the first weeks after a disaster.

Five years, because rebuilding a community is about more than just helping people rebuild their houses.

Five years, because being someone’s neighbour is about more than just having your house next to theirs.