The Tsunami caused great mental trauma, far outstripping any of the material loss that people suffered. Whilst other organisations attended to the material needs of the survivors, BasicNeeds focused on the reconstruction of mental wellbeing, particularly of children.

The mental trauma of survivors was palpable and understandably disabling. Thanks to the help of generous donations, we have been able to help children and adults start to overcome their grief and take control of their lives once again. We have given hope to many survivors in their darkest hours, but there is still a long way to go for many.

Due to our ongoing work in Sri Lanka, we were able to quickly respond when the Tsunami struck. The team went to the camps where people had been forced to live following the destruction of their homes.Children in the camps were quiet and uninterested in playing. They were isolated; trapped in their grief, their confusion and their lack of understanding.

This feeling had spread to their parents and families too. By the time we reached them, people were fed-up at filling in forms and questionnaires from other organisations. They weren’t even interested in receiving the aid from organisations and generous locals. Hills of donated clothes lay around the camps, untouched. The grief that they felt at losing everything had taken hold.

To help children we formed Children’s camps. Through art therapy we helped them express their emotions and deal with their grief. The aim of the camp was to help the children solve problems themselves and take some control in their lives once again.

Although it may seem strange, one thing that the children were very concerned about was a lack of school uniform. We provided it for them. This may seem like a small concern, but it helped them to have a sense of normality in their lives again at a time of unbelievable trauma.

Our teams helped children’s parents too. If you can take control of your own life then things start to feel a little better. We set up community groups in the camps where parents simply talked: talk about their grief, their losses, their needs, their hope for the future. This let them feel they weren’t alone and gave them some control in their lives once again.

These sessions also gave us a chance to identify those in need of additional help and we referred them onto our mobile psychiatric team. In total, we were able to consult over 5000 families in 56 locations.

Some Tsunami survivors were so impressed with our work they volunteered to be trained as counsellors. We currently have 386 survivors helping us so far. They act as counsellors in their own communities, listening to the problems people have and helping them over come their pain.

Our work has been very successful and the normalisation process has been faster than we dared hope. Our approach has been praised by the international community, including the World Health Organisation. In fact, it has been so in demand that we have started a course to train other NGO workers in how to help people with mental trauma after disastrous events. Click here to read about our international training programme >>

There’s still a long way to go for many survivors; the Tsunami continues to haunt them. Through our programmes we hope to give them hope once again.

We need to be there for Tsunami survivors in the long-term. Your donation could make the difference to someone’s life today. Please click here to make a donation >>