8M Pounds Spend Benefits More Than 200,000 Older Tsunami Survivors, UK

Main Category: Aid / Disasters
Also Included In: Seniors / Aging
Article Date: 21 Dec 2007 - 12:00 PDT

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This week, as families around the world remember the Asian tsunami of 2004, Help the Aged and HelpAge International (HAI) highlight the positive role older people have played in the reconstruction of their countries.

More than 10,000 older people have received small business loans or benefited from credit schemes during the three-year programme of tsunami work funded by the Disaster Emergencies Committee (DEC). Managed and distributed through older people's associations, many of the loans have already been repaid and the money reinvested in communities, showing that when older people are given money they use it wisely.

Sixty year-old Thilakased Mallika lives in a fishing village close to Matara in Sri Lanka and ran a thriving batik business from her home before the Tsunami. When she heard that the giant waves were coming, Mallika, her husband and her daughter, left everything behind and fled their home. The looms they used to produce batik cloth were completely destroyed, leaving them without an income.

Help the Aged and HAI, working with local partner the Visura Development Foundation, gave them a small loan which they used to replace equipment and buy new stock. "The loan helped us rebuild our business and now we sell locally, but also take our cloth to other nearby markets," says Mallika, who repaid the loan within the year.

Richard Blewitt, Chief Executive Officer of HelpAge International, said: 'The tsunami relief effort has allowed us to focus on not only on meeting older people's immediate needs after the disaster, but on building their capacity so that they can generate income, participate in decision-making, and play an important part in lifting their families and communities out of poverty.'

Help the Aged and HAI have helped to establish hundreds of older people's groups in India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, many of which will continue beyond the three-year post-tsunami programme. Not only have they been administering loans, but in India for example they have also been lobbying banks and governments to give older people access to credit.

David Clark, International Manager at Help the Aged, said: 'We know that older people are particularly vulnerable during disasters, and have been working hard to ensure that the tsunami aftermath means that they are prepared and can educate their communities and governments about their needs.'

Help the Aged and HAI received £8 million from the UK public as part of the DEC Appeal and have invested the money in programmes in Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia that include:

- 250 age-friendly houses and 10 community centres in Sri Lanka to house around older people and their families who lost their homes in the tsunami;

- 4 cyclone-proof multi-purpose community centres for older people in India;

- Establishment of 55 'Community Grain Banks for Grans', in India, administered by active older members of elders' self-help groups;

- 71 medical staff and 80 home-based carers have received training to help tsunami affected older people in Indonesia;

- Rights training for older people in India to help them access social pensions and other entitlements; and

- Mobile Medicare Units (MMUs) have treated more than 80,000 older people in all three countries.

As the tsunami relief-funded projects draw to a close, HtA and HAI are currently working with 16 local partners to ensure sustainability of some of these programmes. They are also responding to the needs of older people in the wake of the Bangladesh cyclone.

Help the Aged and HAI have also launched a Disaster Risk Reduction programme to ensure that older people's capacity and skills are utilised and needs met so that they are better equipped to respond to the increasing number of global disasters and conflicts.

Notes:

Help the Aged works through its international partner HelpAge International during international emergencies that threaten the lives and livelihoods of older people. Help the Aged raises funds from its own supporters and is also a member of the DEC.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is the emergency fundraising mechanism for 13 of the UK's leading aid and relief agencies. The DEC comes together when there is a pressing need for coordinated action, when the members have the ability to make a real difference and when there is sufficient public awareness to assume an appeal would succeed.

HelpAge International has a vision of a world in which all older people fulfil their potential to lead dignified, healthy and secure lives. HelpAge International is a global network striving for the rights of disadvantaged older people to economic and physical security; healthcare and social services; and support in their caregiving role across the generations. Visit this link.

Help the Aged is the charity fighting to free disadvantaged older people in the UK and overseas from poverty, isolation, neglect and ageism. Help the Aged urgently needs donations and support to help it in the increasingly challenging fight to free disadvantaged older people from poverty, isolation and neglect.

http://www.helptheaged.org.uk

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