Date:

January 1st and Jan 2nd 2005

Venue:

Tsunami Relief Camp, Nivetita Higher Secondary School, Porayar, Tharangambadi – Tk., Nagappattinam Dt., Tamilnadu, India
Total No of People Benefited: 1500
Total No of Volunteers: 25

Brief Description of the Camp Trip

Just an hour before it was ticking to 12 o' clock to welcome the New Year 2005 in Bangalore, around 12 volunteers started to Tamil Nadu in two vans with the van-full of clothes/non-perishable food items / Water packets and other Materials.

With the additional 14 volunteers from Namakkal, after a long 20+ hour’s journey, we reached Tharangambadi, where Tsunami hit 1000 identified deaths with more than 1000s are still missing. With lot of difficulties caused by the police check post / Revenue dept in between, we managed to take all the good items including cloths to the camps.

We visited 3-4 Tsunami Relief Camps around Tharangambadi area where thousands of Tsunami affected people are staying. Each of these camps is holding/caring 1000-1500 people. These camps are located around 2-3 km away from the seashore. All these people are from various sea-hosts villages around Tharangambadi. 80-90% of these affected people are from the Fishermen community.

We identified one of the 4 Camps, which is located in a remote village called 'Porayar'. We also heard that this camp could not get much help and all of the residents are from FISHERMEN community. Around 1500 people were shifted to this camp from the Tidal Wave areas and are undertaken the relief activities. The local Nivetita Higher Secondary school management and local volunteers were working ROUND-THE-CLOCK in fulfilling their needs.

After hearing a lot of their disaster stories, we tried to console/counsel few of them and later we realized what we did is just FEW DROPS in the OCEAN and it takes years to cure their mental wound. We could hear many stories of their loss of their loved ones … within few minutes…. just before their eyes.

It was really a hard time mixing with their emotions. We later distributed all the materials (which includes Half Van Full of good clothes packed category wise, 17x25kgs bags of Rice, 2x50kgs Rava, 175 liters of Tetra packed Milk, 4000 packs of Water, Bread, Rusk packets, Jam, Bun, Tooth Powder, Soaps, Detol etc., for distribution to 1500 effected brother and sisters) to the big crowd and spent our whole time with them during the New year night till the next day early morning. They did a bid fare-well to us and we returned by feeling the heaviness in our mind...

We take this opportunity to thank all the contributors and volunteers for their immense help by whole-heartedly contributing the clothes and materials towards the Tsunami Relief efforts. Thanks a Bunch to the contributed Friends for bringing little smile on Tsunami effected brother and sisters!