Livelihood bridge from Payagala to Bentota
 

by Aditha Dissanayake

"Broken lives/Broken strings/Broken dreams/...Ain't no use joking/Everything's broken."

Until 26th December 2004, Bob Dylan's lyrics could have described any country in South Asia, except ours. We have always been, to use the age old clich,, the pearl of the Indian ocean; the Golden island (Swarna dvipa) with "copper coloured palms" (Tambapanni), beautiful and alluring.

Or so we thought.

The truth, when it came on boxing-day 2004 was rough and overwhelming. "The sea swallowed everything we had" (muhudata serama gahan giya) says a middle-aged man in a faded t-shirt and sarong, who, till last December had been a beach vendor selling wooden artifacts (i.e. replicas of the Titanic made from wood) to tourists on the beach in Bentota. "I wish I had perished with my house and belongings".

He says with a sigh. "Shhh" cautions his wife, straddling the child she is carrying from one hip to the other. "Things are better now. We have work".

Work? Yes. Thanks to the Tourism Cluster Cash for Work Program. Begun early this year, and funded by Revive, an initiative of USAID, the program has provided work to around hundred refugees in the South.

With the guidance of Prema Cooray, Chairman of the Tourism Cluster, who is also the Secretary General of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and Saliya Withana, Tourism Cluster Coordinator, the program consist of three phases, of which, phase one, cleaning the debris on the Galle road from Payagala to Bentota has already been completed. The next step of landscaping the cleared stretches (the third in the series) is scheduled to commence in the coming months.

The second phase, which is "on-going" at the moment, has provided work for around seventy people who are involved in clearing the debris on the Kalutara beach and adjoining by-roads. Several small-scale businesses too have sprung up in the area (i.e. supplying meals for the workers) providing a livelihood for the villagers thus ensuring that the Southern coast, after the disaster will not turn into a financial sinkhole.

Keeping in mind the benefits of the so-called economics of unification the project has instigated hotel employees to act as supervisors overlooking the work of the refugees. By managing the labour teams these employees who have lost the additional income they received as "service charge" in the aftermath of the tsunami are now happy of the opportunity of earning an extra income by working for the project.

Moreover, perhaps for the first time in the history of the tourism industry the antagonistic relationship between the beach vendors and hotel staff has transcended into one of camaraderie.

The bridge between the two sides hitherto brimming with grudges and grievances against each other seem to have been bridged. With the cooperation of the Provincial Councils, the Bentota, Beruwala and Kalutara Hoteliers' Associations, and the displaced people in refugee camps, most of them beach vendors, the program has not only made wholesale reconstruction of the 12km stretch of the Galle Road from Payagala to Bentota but also created a benign atmosphere between the hoteliers and the villagers.

The feeling in the air right now is not about "we against them" but about "us". Program Tourism Cluster Cash for Work, which pays every worker Rs. 525.00 per day has also changed the refugees from being whiners and moaners just coasting along until social welfare runs out, into wage earners with an income sufficient to cover the cost of their basic needs.

Perhaps for the fist time since the disaster the displaced have been given a chance to take responsibility for themselves.

Six months after black Sunday, signs of the silver lining are surely beginning to appear behind the darkest of clouds ever to have hovered over our island.