Hope starts at home

Bringing Home Hope – A snapshot of life after disaster

By Nizla Naizer

Disasters are unpredictable and life changing; and the people of the East have gone through one too many disasters in the last few decades, from the ravages of a war to the confounding calamity of a killer tsunami. Yet despite these disasters, one continuing truth keeps these people going and helps them carry on their day-to-day lives with purpose, and that is hope. The hope for a better tomorrow and fresh beginnings, and Anushka Pereira and Timothy Seneviratne have come together to capture the essence of hope in a beautiful book, ‘Bringing Home Hope’ launched at the Goethe Institute yesterday.

“It’s a snapshot of the lives of 22 individuals and their families,” the book’s author Anushka Pereira told me, “Hope begins with a home, and that’s what these people have been provided with, but there is so much more. Everyday is a struggle and we try to capture their lives through these stories and pictures.” With the colourful and poignant photographs provided by Timothy Seneviratne, the book was commissioned by the Austrian-Swiss Red Cross, an NGO which constructed thousands of homes for those whose lives were devastated by the tsunami.
“Instead of a pragmatic report on the status of those who were relocated into these homes, we decided to look at the human perspective,” she explained, “Yes, these people have a home, but it’s still a challenge to pull through the day, years after the tsunami hit their shores.” The book will provide those who cannot observe these survivors firsthand, a perspective into the lives and struggles of the diverse communities and their diverse livelihoods.
“For the last three to four years, we have been talking to the villagers in Trincomalee and Batticaloa,” she informed. From Kallarawa, Puduvekadu and Salapayaru in Trincomalee to Nasibanthiru, Kaththankudi and Thrincoladi in Batticaloa, they visited families and individuals who survived the rising terror in the East only to be confronted with a terrorising wave. “Kallarawa for example, was a border village of mainly a Sinhalese population who were massacred in the height of terror, while Kaththankudi has seen more than its share of violence,” she said.” People are now rebuilding their lives and you get that sense of a new beginning every time you walk into these new settlements.”
Stories from the lives of settlers in Karukkanagar in the Kilinochchi District were included in the book though the author couldn’t visit them personally due to security reasons, along with stories from the Salzburg settlement in Galle where all the homes were provided by the residents of the city of Salzburg in Austria. “The book has taken a while in the making,” she said, “But instead of a catalogue of what’s been done in these areas, it’s a more compelling and interesting take on the lives of these people.”
The launch of the book coincided with an exhibition of photographs from the book taken by Timothy Seneviratne at the Goethe Institute till May 27. From bright eyed young villagers with an attitude of forbearance in difficult times, to smiling children who were too young to remember why they had to move to a different life altogether, the aptly named book brings a compelling look into the reality faced by the people of the East. And with the end of a war and more prosperous times in the offing in the East, it’s definitely time to bring home hope.