Widowed by the tsunami, many young
mothers are facing an uphill struggle to rebuild their
lives.
She used to be full of hope. But her world suddenly
went dark the day that a wrathful ocean robbed her of
both husband and father in one fell swoop. "We
were planning to sell the fish we'd raised to build
a little house of our own," recalls Jamriang Niyomdecha,
31, of Baan Hin Laad, a Muslim village in Phang-nga's
Khura Buri district.
"That was the dream
we had together." Her voice trembles then
she begins sobbing quietly, holding her one-year-old
son more tightly to her bosom. Her eldest, a girl, is
only three.
"We talked of getting
a good education for the two children so that they wouldn't
have as hard a life as we've had. But now I have no
job, no income. How am I going to put them through school,
let alone feed them?"
At dawn on December 26, Jamriang's
husband and father put on to sea in their fishing boat.
Normally they'd have been back home close to noon, bringing
with them the crabs which it was her job to cook, extracting
the meat for sale. Now she and her mother, both widowed
by the tsunami, are on their own.
So, too, is Vasana Saengthong,
a 31-year-old resident of the same village. The tsunami
took her loving husband, left her crushed by grief and
in the unenviable position of being a single mother
without any means of support.
Vasana has four small children,
aged eight, six, four and two. One of them is crippled.
"Sometimes I feel
as if my head's going to burst open,"
Vasana confides. "I can't stop thinking
about my husband. I still can't believe what's happened.
Vasana Saengthong : "My
children have kept me alive ... kept me sane."
"I'm deeply worried for my kids. How will
I ever manage to bring them up to be good people. How
am I going to do it all alone?"
The same question weighs heavily
on other tsunami widows, many of whom have small children
but no source of income to rebuild their shattered lives.
There are five of
them at Baan Hin Laad alone, and nearly 20 in just one
sub-district, according to a survey conducted
by the Foundation for Women. There are still no official
figures available for the number of people in the six
tsunami-hit provinces who lost spouses _ which partly
explains why no attempt has yet been made to meet the
special needs of widows and widowers.
Uppermost in their minds is the
hope of getting long-term scholarships for their children
and occupational assistance for themselves: help in
finding jobs so that they can start supporting their
families.
"The people who
come to our village only ask about the kids. They never
ask about us women," says Jamriang.
"Mothers like us also need help so that we can
find work and feed our children."
Islam, she explains, prohibits
women from touching donations meant for their offspring
_ a measure apparently designed to protect children's
welfare. "So we mothers need separate help."
According to Chortip Chaicharn,
manager of the Foundation for Women, being female _
and the mother of young children, to boot _ has made
it particularly difficult for the tsunami widows to
get help. After long letting their men deal with the
outside world, these widows are simply unprepared to
step out of their domestic milieus and seek help; they
are unfamiliar with the language of officialdom, with
the ways of the bureaucracy and the formal procedures
which those applying for assistance must follow.
They are also bound by the ties
of motherhood.
"Having small children
to take care of, they just can't leave the house to
go look for donations in cash or in kind. You see, most
of the donors go to the tsunami relief centres which
are far from where they live," Chortip
explains.
"That means that the widows
are simply unable to reach the aid," she adds.
Fortunately one individual in
Ban Hin Laad, a woman named Orawan Madteh, took it upon
herself to collect rice and other donated items from
a relief centre located within the compound of a Buddhist
temple and then distribute them to the widows in her
village. But now, more than two months after the tsunami
struck, supplies at the relief centre are running low.
Jamriang reckons she has only enough rice to last her
household another month. "I don't know
what I'm going to do after that."
Since the widows are such an
inaccessible group, Chortip says a survey should be
done to locate them and then it will be necessary to
initiate outreach and home-visit programmes to monitor
their needs and help them become self-reliant. "We
can't wait for them to reach us."
Naturally, these women's concerns
focus primarily on their children with the majority
glossing over or putting to one side their personal
needs. Many of them still haven't got over the deaths
of their husbands and are fearful about the future,
says Chortip. "They were already quite
poor. Their houses are mere flimsy shacks. The tsunami
tragedy has plunged them deeper into difficulty."
And as they struggle to cope
with their loss, their young children's constant pleading
for coins to buy sweets and other small treats only
serves to aggravate their stress and sense of inadequacy
all the more.
"Their distress is such
that some have become edgy and irritable with their
children," says Chortip, "while others
have begun thinking about looking for work in Malaysia
to support their families."
In desperation, some are planning
to withdraw their older daughters from school so they
can help take care of the younger siblings.
To ease their sense of isolation
and helplessness, the tsunami widows need urgent psychological
help to get in touch with their feelings and express
the grief they've been bottling up. Assurances that
assistance will be forthcoming for their children would
greatly lessen these women's anxieties, Chortip adds.
Helping them find new ways to
earn a living poses yet another huge challenge.
Many of the widows are still
in a state of shock and don't know what occupation they
should take up much less what it would take to make
that happen. This is particularly true of housewives
who have had no experience of working outside the home.
And that's why the Foundation for Women wants to end
their isolation and help them link up with other victims
as part of the emotional healing process.
After attending a meeting of
tsunami victims, Jamriang says she feels better about
her situation and more confident about the future. "I've
learned that there are a lot of people suffering like
me, or who have it even worse. I've also learned that
there are people out there who can help us."
Encouraging the widows to form
self-help groups _ to draw up babysitting rosters, for
instance, or discuss employment possibilities _ will
not only answer some of their practical needs, "but
is also part and parcel of the empowerment process",
Chortip explains.
And there's another group of
women which has been completely overlooked in the massive
tsunami aid effort: single mothers who were widowed
or got divorced prior to December 26. They were already
raising their kids independently but lost their jobs
as a result of the tragedy or had tools and equipment
they used to earn a living destroyed or carried away
by the killer waves.
Because their husbands did not
die in the tsunami, their children are not eligible
to get the scholarships being offered to other youngsters
in the affected provinces. Nor are they themselves able
to get assistance in finding new sources of income.
But since they have previous experience working outside
the home, these women would only need a small amount
of money, some emergency seed capital, to enable them
to get back on their feet again, Chortip points out.
Jamriang and Vasana, whose children
are still toddlers, say what they need is work they
can do at home while they look after their little ones.
And they need their kids as much
as their kids need them. "Had it not been for my
children, I really don't know how I'd have survived
the death of my husband," says Vasana, her eyes
red-rimmed and puffy. "My children have kept me
alive ... kept me sane."
INFORMATION FOR DONATIONS
- Name of organisation: The Foundation
for Women
- Contact person: Chortip Chaicharn
- Address: 295 Charan Sanitwong Soi 62, Bang Phlad,
Bangkok 10700
- Telephone: 02-433-5149
- Fax: 02-434-6775
- Email: ffw@womenthai.org
- Web site: http://www.womenthai.org/
- Bank info: Kasikorn Bank, Sathon
branch
- Savings account name: Foundation for Women
- Account number: 038-2-18085-2
Make money orders payable to:
Foundation for Women, PO Box 47, Bangkok Noi 10700.
Please also fax a copy of your money order to the organisation
stating that your donation is to assist its programme
for widows.
OUTLOOK - Tuesday 08 March 2005
BANGKOKPOST
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