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After the tsunami
Two years after the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, GlaxoSmithKline is helping to rebuild communities and support healthcare schemes that help people to rebuild their lives.
After the tsunami: rebuilding communities in Thailand
It’s two years since the tsunami disaster that killed over 200,000 people across the Indian Ocean. Schools, homes, hotels and businesses were swept away, and hundreds of thousands lost their livelihoods.
Thailand’s coastal region was one of the most devastated areas. Now GlaxoSmithKline is helping local people to rebuild some of these communities.
GSK’s Global Community Partnerships scheme is working in partnership with a Thai non-government organisation, the Raks Thai Foundation. £150,000 from GSK will help create new livelihoods for 160 families in the Krabi and Ranong provinces.
They can apply for low-cost loans to buy things like boats, engines or fishing nets. And as each loan is repaid the money is made available to another family.
A long-term commitment to disaster relief
The funds are managed by the communities themselves, and are part of a long-term rehabilitation plan for their area.
“We were looking more long term to involve communities in planning and building short-term shelters in the areas of their destroyed villages and to begin the process of long-term rehabilitation,” says Promboon Panitchpakdi, executive director of the Raks Thai Foundation.
Promboon Panitchpakdi
In the next four years, for example, the foundation will be developing health and sanitation programmes with our support. These projects may include education schemes for young people on HIV/AIDS.
The foundation is also keen to involve younger people - people like Vorachit Islamnukul, a 23 year-old student of tourism and hotel management, and an avid football fan in his spare time. “Our aim is to get the young people within Klong Yang to spend some of their spare time working on schemes which will provide useful benefits to the whole community,” he says.
Real lives
Wirat's story
Wirat Prapas was working at the South Sea Ocean hotel when the tsunami hit.
"One of the hotel mechanics said come and look at the beach. The tide had gone out a long way, some four kilometres from the normal level. There were fish stranded and local people came to gather them. Five minutes later the first wave struck."
"Everyone started to shout and scream and run away. But several people on the beach were hit by this wave and died on the beach. I climbed onto a water container with some others to get away from the surging water. Then the second wave came. It was so big, up as high as the pine trees and it destroyed every building, house and tree in its path."
"Some of my friends had managed to reach the third floor of the hotel and they threw a rope down to those of us on the water container."
"Shortly afterwards the third wave hit, not as high as the second but by then the people left clinging to life were scared and panicked. Then it was calm and still."
"I managed to get back to where my home had been and asked neighbours about my wife and child. Fortunately, they had been able to get away from the beach to higher ground and I eventually found them in a nearby village."
"We still get nightmares about that day. Several of my friends lost loved ones and an even greater number of tourists died."
Wirat Prapas is the leader of the Keuk Kak community in southern Thailand. 19 of his neighbours died in the tsunami tragedy, many of them children and the elderly. He’s received money from the GSK fund to buy squid pots for a fishing business, and he also wants to start a small shop.
In the Klong Yang village in the Kah Lan Ta province, there are plans to use the GSK funds to expand into rice farming. “Some of the community own land in this area and we are keen to develop this into the production of rice,” says fund chairman Noppadon Wangsalae. “The money will be used to buy plants and fertilizer.”
Anant Munpien is chairman of the fund committee for the Lo Yai community on Lanta Noi island. Thirty five families currently benefit from the GSK fund and most of the loans are being used to buy boats, fishing nets or fish cages.
“We enjoyed a good lifestyle before the tsunami but this was all wiped away on that day,” he says. “We are rebuilding our lives with the assistance of the revolving fund and we really appreciate what GSK and Raks Thai have done for us.”
After the tsunami: healthcare in Sri Lanka and Indonesia
Elsewhere in the tsunami disaster zone, GSK is supporting health schemes in Sri Lanka, and maternity care in Indonesia.
In south and east Sri Lanka many people still face long journeys to get basic healthcare, something few can afford. GSK has worked with Direct Relief to get local medical services back to – or even better than – where they were before the tsunami.
GSK has also funded mobile clinics offering paediatric, optical, dental and prenatal care as well as building a hospital in Nunavut, in the Ampere district, to replace the one they lost.
In Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka, GSK has funded the Shiplap Children’s Trust to provide medical care for over 250 children in a community wrecked by the tsunami. Many of these children lost their homes and families, and need psychological support as well as basic healthcare.
The Aceh province of Indonesia was one of the hardest hit areas in the whole of the Indian Ocean. Many of us saw TV pictures of the enormous damage the tsunami did to this area. Short-term disaster relief has done much, but there’s a longer-term need to improve healthcare, especially for mothers and babies.
Of 6,000 midwives practising in Aceh before the tsunami, 600 were killed and more than 700 made homeless. GSK has supported JHPIEGO, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, to train more midwives at the Takengon Midwifery Academy in Aceh Tengah.
“Our aim is to get the young people within Klong Yang to spend some of their spare time working on schemes which will provide useful benefits to the whole community,” says Vorachit Islamnukul
"We believe these are innovative and relevant programmes that will ensure effective use of GSK funds," says Justine Frain, vice president, Global Community Partnerships at GSK. "We are working with respected international organisations that have a good track record in this area and experience on the ground."
Link to more information about our Global Community Partnerships scheme and our wider corporate responsibility programme.
