Wednesday, Feb 2, 2005
NYSUT members respond
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NEW YORK TEACHER - Feb. 3, 2005. To date, NYSUT has raised more than $45,000 for the tsunami relief efforts. NYSUT President Tom Hobart, who recently returned from a six-day mission to tsunami-ravaged areas in Indonesia and Sri Lanka , urged union members to contribute whatever they could. [full story]
Friday, January 28, 2005
1 p.m. Eastern Standard TimePhoto Gallery
Photos from Indonesia and Sri Lanka are now online.
Video
Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2005
10:14 a.m. Eastern Standard TimeWhere do you start?
I'm back in Latham and a lot of things are on my mind.
You need to be kind of non-emotional when visiting the different schools, refugee camps and other areas of destruction.
But the nights were hard. Alone in my room I couldn't help but think of the despair we saw.
I was at the World Trade Center site two weeks after the tragedy of Sept. 11 [link]. One problem in my mind then was what to do with my boots after walking around the site. Surely, the dust contained the ashes of someone's loved one.
There's a difference between investigating a tragedy and living it. A lot of the people I saw were the relatives of the people who were dead.
Some survivors lost every member of their families. I met a man who said he visited the refugee camps everyday looking for his wife and three children. In one day those people were just gone. In their culture they're supposed to mourn for two to three weeks for every person who has died.
Where do you start?
In Sri Lanka, they are encouraging widows and widowers to match up in hopes of rebuilding new families.
It is really heart breaking.
There are many people less fortunate than us. For most of those people, they started out less fortunate and then had this terrible tragedy.
The tsunami was a world problem. It could have just as easily come to California, Connecticut, the Carolinas or any of the many coastal areas.
We have a global responsibilty to help these people.
I'm proud of the response of our locals who have already contributed $15,000, adding to the $25,000 that NYSUT put up. That's $40,000 that will go to the AFT Tsunami Relief program. My hope is that the locals will raise another $10,000 to match NYSUT's initial contribution.
So much has been done yet there is so much more that needs to be done. I urge you to contribute to the relief fund if you haven't already.
Checks from local unions, individuals or school groups should be made out to NYSUT with "Tsunami Relief" written in the memo section and mailed c/o the President's Office, NYSUT, 800 Troy-Schenectady Road, Latham, N.Y. 12110-2455.
As I said before, every penny collected through our tsunami relief efforts will be concentrated towards getting kids back to school.
In solidarity,
Friday, Jan. 21, 2005
12:40 p.m. Eastern Standard TimeColumbo, Sri Lanka
"One school we visited was absolutely wiped out; there wasn't anything standing. I saw the principal rummaging through a pile of desks and chairs trying to see what was salvageable." |
Today we visited the camps and several schools. Our bus left around 5 a.m.
The population in Sri Lanka is about 1.9 million. It is a lush country, about the size of Ireland.
There are thousands of palm trees, some 40-50 feet tall. And the undergrowth may be 5-10 feet tall so, when the wave hit, the trees helped to break up the water.
One newspaper said that they'd started a reforestation program right away because where there was a natural forest there was less damage.
We drove down the south coast to the city of Galle. Everything in Galle was destroyed except a resort that sat on a cliff.
The entire island, except the northern province was hit by the wave. The worst devastation is on the east coast.
We passed one area where 2,500 people died when the train they were on was hit by the waves. The people who observed it said the train floated on the water for awhile before turning over.
One difference I noticed is that, unlike the buildings in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, the buildings in Sri Lanka seemed to survive.
The devastation in Banda Aceh can't really be compared to that in Sri Lanka. We're talking about a concentrated city versus spread-out villages and resort areas.
In Sri Lanka, the cleanup process is well under way. We kept passing piles of neatly stacked bricks and rough tiles used for building.
I didn't actually get to go into many of the camps today because all of the NGOs (non-government organizations), like the Red Cross, were there distributing things to the people.
We did stop along the road to speak with some of the people in temporary housing. Most people put tents up on the foundations where their homes used to be.
Empty school buildings
We stopped at a couple of schools and I talked with teachers and some of the children.
Many teachers did not survive or are missing. The government reporting is terrible and there isn't really an exact figure of the casualties.
The morning the tsunami hit was a holiday in Sri Lanka, so fortunately not as many children were lost.
At the first school we went to, parents waited with their children because there was a rumor that one of the NGOs was going to pass out uniforms. They were disappointed nobody was there with the clothing.
One school we visited was absolutely wiped out; there wasn't anything standing. I saw the principal rummaging through a pile of desks and chairs trying to see what was salvageable.
At another school, kids were there to hear about the schools to which they were going to be transferred.
Many schools were located by the ocean. The government has instituted a rule that there can't be any rebuilding within 100 meters of the ocean. I'm not sure if it's for the protection of the people. One hundred meters is certainly not far enough to protect people from a tsunami. It's getting people away from what could be profitable land. The minister of tourism was speaking today and said there would be some flexibility for building hotels - tourists like to stay on the beaches.
Most of the kids will be relocated to schools that were not destroyed by the waves. These schools are quite a distance from their schools and I'm sure there will be a severe problem with overcrowded classrooms.
A more pressing concern is protecting children from being kidnapped into the sex trade.
I was very pleased at the job our troops are doing. People at the schools we visited kept thanking us for the U.S. Army coming in and cleaning up the schoolyards.
Many people who lost their homes had set up in the schools that were spared from damage. UNICEF was giving those people blue tents to use as housing so the kids could get back in their schools. All of the NGOs have different colored tents.
Devastated industry
Sri Lanka is a seacoast country and fishing is a huge industry. The tsunami destroyed the oil tanks and the ice houses.
The fishermen have gotten their boats back in the water but they have no fuel, and they can't get ice to store the fish they catch.
Another problem is a lack of drinking water. All of the wells are contaminated with saltwater. The U.S. Army has set up a desalting facility to help with that.
One concern I have is that well-meaning people are coming in but doing things that are not necessarily helpful. We can't take over the role of government. We kept asking "Is there a plan for redevelopment?" But we didn't get too many answers.
I'll be getting ready to return to the States soon. I'll report again once I get back to Albany.
Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005
10:43 a.m. Eastern Standard Time80,000 students and teachers displaced
The EI delegation meets with local teachers and union leaders. |
Today I'm in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Colombo is a large city. We arrived last night and it took us about an hour to travel from the airport to the city.
The city of Colombo was spared from damage by the tsunami. However, the death toll throughout Sri Lanka may reach 40,000 or more. The tsunami caused untold damage and some reports say that more than 80,000 teachers and students either don't have a school to return to or the school is being used as temporary housing. The damage was mostly to the north and south of the city; we're going north tomorrow.
Getting aid to those in need
We met with the six Education International teacher union affiliates here and the affiliates of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. There was also a representative from the International Labor Organization.
I've come to listen and basically say, Tell us what you need and we'll tell you if we can do it.
There seems to be a disconnect between the teachers union, the teachers and members of other unions.
The union leaders said we need to send in monitors, but if we did that, all of the money would be spent on the monitors.
There are some concerns that the money won't get to the teachers. We're making every effort to ensure every penny ends up with the people who need it most.
By the end of the meeting, each sector had agreed to put together a proposal to share with everyone at the meeting.
We'll leave here around 5 tomorrow morning to visit the refugee camps. There I'll try to visit the temporary schools where teachers are volunteering.
Challenges on the streets
I had a little time today to walk around. Getting around traffic is a challenge; it can be frightening. There was a lot of heavy traffic in Jakarta, making crossing the street an adventure. Here, in Colombo, the corners are very wide, so when you step off the curb, you can't see if there are cars coming at you.
I'll be flying out for Singapore around 1 a.m., making my way back to the United States but I'll check in again when I can.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
11:23 a.m. Eastern Standard TimeGround zero
Here I am with Fred van Leeuwen, EI General Secretary, surveying the ruins of a secondary school in Aceh. None of the students and teachers survived the tsunami. More photos and reports on the mission are online at the Education International web site. |
Right now we're traveling over the China Sea on our
way to Sri Lanka. We should arrive there around 2:30 in
the morning.
The images of Banda Aceh are still fresh in my mind. The amount of debris that has to be removed, if I had to guess, is 20 to 30, maybe even 40 to 50 times that at the World Trade Center. I saw the WTC site two weeks after 9/11 and this reminds me of that catastrophe.
At least 100,000 homes were destroyed.
There is an awful lot of heavy equipment, bulldozers and steam rollers. They are still removing corpses. Some people have started calling it ground zero. I can see the plastic bags with corpses lying on the side of the road being picked up.
We were given surgical gloves and masks we were supposed to wear. A couple of times I caught a whiff of a sickening sweet smell. It may have been the decomposing bodies. They told us the stench would stick to our clothes.
Life in the refugee camps
It rained all day Monday when we were in the refugee camp. The camps are on high ground so there aren't puddles of salt water around the camps. Below the camps they are still taking out the dead bodies. We went by a mass grave of about 1,000 bodies and a bulldozer was just piling dirt on the graves.
The government is providing the refugees with food but a major problem is despair. I met a young man who lost 8 members of his family, including his wife.
The people in the refugee camps are asking us how long we are going to be here. There are at least 100,000 refugees. Many people are saying the government is repressing some figures and there could be as many as half a million dead.
I didn't see a lot of children. The orphans are taken to a separate place. The people I saw at the camps were all families. They have a very large operation here to try to identify people displaced from their families. The paper today warned Europeans about trying to adopt the orphans as it might lead to heartbreak.
Relief efforts
One thing that is obvious is the need for some coordination. There are all kinds of non-government organizations here like the scientologists and everybody is in competition. It looks like the government really hasn't set up a way to coordinate. People may be duplicating efforts and I worry that a lot is going to be left undone.
Because of problems that came up after 9/11 and the distribution of aid, the Red Cross has said they can only guarantee to distribute $400 million. If you're a local Red Cross you can call in as much money as you want, the condition is you have to pay back everything you call in. It puts a strain on the community.
There is a lot of money. Sweden made a huge contribution. Sweden lost 2,000 citizens in Thailand, which is a favorite vacation site. The Swedish government declared this the largest natural disaster for the country.
The government seems to be providing food but the people also need jobs and houses and to get back to what they were doing.
You just can't imagine the destruction. On both sides of the road there are just splinters of wood. Everything is absolutely leveled and every now and then I might see one house still standing.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
12:14 p.m. Eastern Standard Time1,700 educators missing in Banda Aceh province
Members of the Education International Delegation meet with teacher union leaders in Banda Aceh. |
Today I'm in Jakarta, Indonesia, a city of about 18 million people. It's as big as New York state and as modern as can be. I leave tomorrow for Sri Lanka. I'm here on a relief mission funded by Education International, surveying the damage and working with local educators to determine how best to use funds being collected back in the states from NYSUT members and staffers, as well as funds being collected by NYSUT's national affiliate, the AFT.
Every penny collected through our "Tsunami Relief" efforts will be concentrated towards getting kids back to school.
The Banda Aceh province
I spent all day yesterday and this morning in Banda Aceh, the city hit the hardest by the tsunami. It's an old medieval city of sultans and it sits just on the ocean.
When we arrived at the airport, the windows were covered with pictures of the lost people. We toured all over. It's a city of 440,000 people. 100,000 are missing or dead. That's one quarter of the population missing or dead. At least a third of the city has been destroyed.
The wave that hit the city was 72km wide, 4 stories high and traveled 6km inland. One survivor we met described it like a giant with the top of the wave forming a head and hands. When the water came in, it was going 100 miles per hour. It washed all this material ahead of itself. Then when the water receded, it took all of the material back - uprooted trees, cars and telephone poles.
The area is just leveled. You may see one house standing in the middle of an entire neighborhood. There are all these pools of standing salt water maybe a foot or two deep.
Kids and teachers missing
While touring the province, we stayed in the house of Amudy Ae, the president of the teacher's union. The union has about 50,000 members in the Aceh province. The Minister of Education told us on Monday that 1,700 teachers were lost just in Banda Aceh.
One school had 100 kids in it when the wave came through. None of the kids has been heard from since.
More than 50% of the school buildings in Indonesia were destroyed by the tsunami, leaving 140,000 elementary school students and 20,000 high school students with nowhere to study.
Before the tsunami, the union was building a new headquarters that had not opened yet. We went by and it was surrounded by water. All of the equipment, wiring and furniture has to be replaced. They're using the president's house as the union office.
I asked what NYSUT could do to help, maybe an adopt-a-school program for our local unions.
They asked us about building houses.
On the road
When we get to Sri Lanka it could be difficult for me to check in. Satellite communications have been a problem. I'll report more when I can.
Monday, January 17, 2005
Our union delegation
I'm traveling with a small group of education union leaders including Fred Van Leeuwen, Education International general secretary; Aloysius Mathews, EI chief regional coordinator for Asia; Mamounata Cisse, the deputy secretary general of ICFTU, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions; Katsuhiko Sato representing the ICFU public employees sector; Mr. P. Aronasalan with the International Metal Workers; and a young lady who works for Aloysius Mathews, Chusnul Savitri, she does everything.
NYSUT President Tom Hobart traveled to South Asia in January 2005 with a select contingent of education union leaders to deliver much-needed aid and messages of support to teachers, students and their families in areas hit hardest by the December 2004 tsunami. The trip was funded entirely by Education International. Tom represented NYSUT's national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, on the mission.
