07 January 2005

Bonn, Germany: Less than two weeks since tsunamis struck on 26 December, the support of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme and presence of UN Volunteers continues to mount in the devastated countries in the Indian Ocean region.

In the affected areas of India, Indonesia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, several teams of UN Volunteers are assisting in relief efforts in collaboration with a number of UN organizations, including the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). They are also supporting local and national governments in disaster information collection and damage and relief need assessments.

Several UN Volunteers stationed in Indonesia’s Aceh province, one of the hardest hit places in the region, are bringing vital support to tens of thousands of people left homeless. Vera Yuliana of Indonesia, one of the four UN Volunteers working in and around the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, assists UNDP’s needs assessment staff in a multitude of tasks, such as mapping out suitable locations for shelters for the displaced and channelling information between the UN and international organizations on the ground. “Since my arrival yesterday [5 January] I’ve been in many of the small villages assessing the damage and helping out where I can,” she says. “We’re [UN Volunteers] in many of the worst hit places seeing what we can do until major relief arrives.”

Vera and the UNV programme office for Indonesia based in Jakarta are also supporting a local NGO, Yayasan Bina Mandiri, in establishing crisis and trauma counselling centres throughout Aceh Province. Five Indonesian UN Volunteers will soon be placed with the NGO to provide assistance in addressing victims’ immediate and long-term physical and mental needs.

In Sri Lanka, Ramraj Narasimhan, a UN Volunteer from India, who works in disaster risk management on the island nation, jumped into action immediately following reports that high waves were flooding parts of the Eastern Province. On the evening of 26 December, he was in communication with government officials and UN heads of agencies in Sri Lanka to brief them on the situation. In the days that followed, Ramraj helped coordinate the arrival of the OCHA mission and performed daily briefings to highlight damage and subsequent needs. Twelve days after the disaster, he continues as the focal point for all correspondence and updates, ensuring information on the relief efforts is readily available to those who need it.

Relaying information on emergency food shipments and other critical relief activities has become an unexpected task for UN Volunteer Christopher Whitehouse. The UK citizen, who is the UNV programme officer in Bhutan, was in the Maldives finishing a project evaluation mission when the tsunamis hit. Since 27 December, he has been part of the emergency information and coordination unit based in UNDP headquarters in the capital of Male. “This is my first time being in the midst of a disaster, but I wanted to help in anyway possible,” Christopher says.