A quarter century of ethnic warfare in Sri Lanka has produced hundreds of thousands of refugees. In Batticaloa district, the area of Sri Lanka that ‘Healing Humanity’ operates in, most of the civil conflict has occurred in poor and rural village areas. These folks work extremely hard, for a very meager living. They are forced to flee the bombing and violence, leaving what little they have earned and literally walking away from the war zone in search of safer ground.

Imagine this, you have been forced from your village, your coconut and /or rice crops have been burned to the ground, your house is ruble, tools destroyed, personal memorabilia lost and you are fearfully running for your life. Members of your family and many close friends are missing, presumably dead. You have been walking for days with no money or food; your only possessions are those you were able to escape with. At your back is the horror of war, in front of you there is no certainty of a future. If you aren’t shot and manage to avoid the mine fields, eventually you make it over no mans’ land to be thrown into a refugee camp. These camps are breeding grounds for disease, so you are probably getting sick, there is never enough food, so you are very hungry, and all you can do is sit and wait. Many of these refugees do not even have clothing to cover their bodies. This is an extremely degrading process and the sad reality of it all is that once the conflict leaves the area of their village, they are forced to make the journey back to their incinerated homes to start their lives over from scratch. Usually, by the time the heartbreak is mending and life is getting back to a somewhat normal standard, the fighting returns and once again the people must embark on their horrid journey to safety.

Assisting refugees can have its challenges. Unless you have very abundant funding you must be sure to accomplish projects that everyone in the camp sees as valuable. You cannot walk into a refugee camp and offer food and medicine to a small portion of the whole, without having anything to offer to the rest of them. If this happens, it can lead to immense discontent and even bitter fighting within the camp. However there are ways to assist, such as compiling a list of needs that affect everybody. Filling just one of those needs can make a little difference for the better in such vile surroundings. For example, if the camp is suffering from dehydration and diarrhea it would be wise to purchase and distribute rehydration salts to each individual family. Or, you could get a list of all the woman who are without clothing and provide them with their much needed cover and dignity.

On our last journey in Sri Lanka, Healing Humanity assessed a large group of refugee families and determined all the ones that had new born babies. We were able to put together little care packages which included baby mosquito nets, baby crackers, lotions, baby powder, feeding bottles, etc. This was a way to help the refugee community as a whole. People without babies understood the importance of caring for the young within their temporary community, and believed that families with newborns deserved the extra assistance. Healing Humanity was also able to move one wondering refuge family into permanent housing. The father, named Wasinda, was a master mason and Healing Humanity hired him to be our construction boss. Although he made good money, he couldn’t save enough for the down payment on a house, so he and his family lived outside while he kept working. His wife was pregnant and as a thank you, Healing Humanity supplied the down payment (only 300CAD) so his baby could be born and raised properly, instead of in the gutter.

Healing Humanity will have a greater capacity to aid refuges as the organization grows and more funding becomes available.