A boy in tsunami-ravaged Keelavaipar, in the Thoothukudi district of India. CWS's long-time partner CASA has worked with the community to build new homes. Photo: Chris Herlinger/CWS

Invisible India

Story by Chris Herlinger/CWS

As India celebrated the 60th anniversary of its independance, Sushant Agrawal speaks of two countries: a visible India and an invisible India.

The visible India, fueled by recent media images, is a nation making advances as a high-tech, computer capital. The invisible India is the India of 60 percent of the country -- poor, struggling, but still hopeful for a better life.

It is in this invisible India that long-time Church World Service partner Church's Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA) focuses its work, and does so in partnership with CWS and other agencies.

CASA, an outreach of Protestant and Orthodox churches in India that Agrawal heads as its director, is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that has been working in the fields of social development and disaster mitigation for nearly six decades. (CASA is currently responding to massive flood-related needs in India.)

And indeed, as CWS celebrated its 60th anniversary and as CASA prepares to celebrate its own 60th anniversary, CASA and CWS are reaffirming their long-standing ties. At a meeting with CWS New York staff in June, Agrawal told CWS Executive Director John McCullough: "We'd like this journey to continue and to be strengthened."

Agrawal hailed the useful ways both agencies have worked together in the areas of relief, development, and advocacy to assist "the invisible India" -- not to mention the shared belief the two agencies have that "people must be advocates of their own cause."

Lalitha and two of her four children stand outside their new home, constructed with CASA's help, in the village of South Chinnoor, Tamil Nadu. Photo: Chris Herlinger/CWS

Building Hope Together

A concrete example of that belief is the partnership CASA and CWS have shared in post-tsunami housing construction in southern India, a partnership that was celebrated earlier this year with a string of housing dedications in the hot, sunny coastal areas of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

The new homes prove that the success of disaster response and rehabilitation depends on working together. Agrawal noted this when he, CASA staff members, local clergy, public officials, and a CWS delegation joined tsunami survivors in helping celebrate the completion of 53 new homes and a multipurpose disaster shelter in the village of South Chinnoor, in Tamil Nadu's Cuddalore district.

Church World Service and its U.S. denominational supporters are among those that have helped fund CASA's post-tsunami reconstruction and recovery efforts, including the construction of 4,000 permanent homes in tsunami-affected areas.

"I realize what partnership can do when people from across the world join hands with you," Agrawal said.

In pre-Holy Week ceremonies marked by elements of solemnity and fun, reverence and color, this three-way partnership -- of CASA, CWS and international church partners, and local communities themselves -- was heralded as a model of working together in a region still feeling the effects of the Dec. 26, 2004, disaster.

Among those now living in the new homes are Keelavaipar residents Mary and Timothy Fernando, married 55 years. Timothy Fernando, a life-long fisherman, received a ceremonial "first key" to the family's new home, which he and his wife share with their three daughters.

"We're very happy, in God's presence, for your help," Mary Fernando said.

Building back better

The dedications were one reason to celebrate. But they also afforded an opportunity to take stock and explore ways to respond to future disasters -- underlining the need to turn a disaster like a tsunami into an opportunity to make life better for its survivors.

New multipurpose disaster shelters, which double as community meeting centers, are an example of that. At a new homes dedication in the village of South Chinnoor, Agrawal singled out the disaster shelter as one of the ways communities can now better prepare for disasters in the future.
Taking note of the ways communities must "take ownership" in preparing for future risks and potential disasters, Agrawal said that "any disaster must be taken as an opportunity to change and improve and prepare for the future."

Agrawal returned to that theme as he spoke on the beach at Kumarapettai -- where in late 2004, he witnessed the devastating human toll of the tsunami, with the coastal area littered with bodies.

One effect of the tsunami was to create problems for the region's fishing industry. Providing replacement fishing boats to those in the fishing trade who had suffered from the tsunami helped create a surplus of boats along the Indian coast and may be depleting limited local fishing stocks. (CASA provided fishing boats at first, but stopped the practice when it realized the problems the additional boats were causing.)

Given such realities, CASA's rehabilitation programs are emphasizing the need for local communities affected by the tsunami to diversify their local economies -- in part by making use of sea and coastal products that otherwise might get unnoticed. "Alternatives need to be developed," Agrawal said. "People want to stay in their communities but are often afraid to work in a non-fishing sector."

The women of Sonangkuppam, India, are helping implement a community disaster preparedness program -- including mapping out evacuation plans -- with the help of CASA staff. Photo: Chris Herlinger/CWS

Women's group strengthening their community

There are small but sturdy steps being taken to overcome such fears. With CASA's support, a woman's group in the village of Sonangkuppam in Tamil Nadu's Cuddalore district, for example, has developed a crafts program in hopes of selling shell-based decorative items to visitors and tourists who are starting to return to the coastal areas.

A visit with the women affirms the group's determination and new-found confidence.
The women are talking openly -- about how, in the past, "women's work was not paid" and how, even now, as one woman sees it, "Men don't change in their ways. They want to dominate us."

The visit offers proof that in small coastal communities, it is women -- who in the past have rarely been given a voice in the public life of their villages -- who have kept community life alive and moving apace amid great difficulties and hardships since 2004.

CASA's support of the women, said CASA southern zone officer Sheila Jones, is just one example "that social equity is one of CASA's principles," as is the need to "rebuild lives with dignity."

"Women are made to think they are in a lower situation due to fate," she said, but noted that, as in the case of the women of Sonangkuppam, "When women are given an opportunity, they can do very well."

The women of Sonangkuppam -- many of whom are also the backbone of a community disaster preparedness program being implemented with CASA's assistance -- say that their new strength and voice have made men in the village jealous of their success.

Paradoxically, said leader Kanimozhi, 30, "In the tsunami, we found our courage," not to mention their collective voice.

That word "collective" is no surprise. Both Jones and Agrawal underlined the need for the global church to work with CASA and local communities like Sonangkuppam to "become a partner in service together."

Both CWS and CASA share the love of God through action. Why? Because CASA and CWS both ask the question: "What does God ask of us as we work in the world?" The answer, Agrawal replies without hesitation: "Justice, peace, and dignity."

One other thing: both agencies believe the issues of development, relief, economic justice, and hunger are all related. "As long as there is hunger in the world," Agrawal said, "there can't be peace."

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