SM relief organization to seek nonprofit status
By CORTNEY FIELDING Special to the Daily Press
While the global community mourns the loss of more than 150,000 people in Southern Asia, the personal grief of one local woman with family ties to tsunami-stricken Sri Lanka has given way to the drive to rebuild, and ordinary life has taken a backseat to helping those left behind.
Nisha Rodrigo, a native of Sri Lanka who moved to California in the 1980s, was so overcome with pain upon hearing about the tsunami in her country that she could not, and still doesn’t, watch the news for fear of seeing her country in shambles.
“I know how bad it is from talking to friends, and I won’t be able to watch,” she said.
But Rodrigo decided quickly not to focus on personal anguish. She has chosen, instead, to put her grief to use by aiding those in Sri Lanka who need it most.
Since Dec. 26, she has sent to Sri Lanka more than 3,000 pounds of immediate-relief items collected in Santa Monica. The donations include baby supplies, food, medicine, blankets and camping supplies. Once the need for emergency aid has dissipated, she plans to refocus her efforts on helping to rebuild homes.
Rodrigo is the owner of a recently opened art and wellness center in downtown Santa Monica called Shatki’s Elements. Her storefront is a command center where she spends her days taking donations, contacting local vendors for food and medical donations, and packing up hundreds of boxes of supplies.
These days she has little time to run the business she spent more than a year plan-ning.
“Business has become my second priority,” she said. “I don’t know how I could not help and still sleep at night.”
Although the response she has received from the community has been positive overall, Rodrigo said she has been approached by people “calling me crazy for doing this when I have my own business to take care of.”
Rodrigo acknowledges that she is scared about what will happen to her business, which has been open for a month, but said the benefits far outweigh the risks.
“I wouldn’t be able to live myself if I didn’t do all I could to help my own people,” she said. “At least I will be fine knowing I did the right thing.”
All the aid collected by her fundraising organization, Aid to Sri Lanka Tsunami Victims, is going directly to the north and northeastern sections of Sri Lanka, two of the poorest and hardest-hit areas of the country, Rodrigo said. Because of mountains, the lack of highways and infrastructure destroyed by the earthquake and floods, these areas are also the hardest geographically to reach, and therefore the most under-serviced with aid.
“These people need aid more than anyone in Sri Lanka,” Rodrigo said.
Rodrigo said her group has been able to help those in the north and northeastern sections because she is working with friends and family already in Sri Lanka who can reach these areas.
Her fiancé, Nzazai Malonga, is in Sri Lanka working at refugee camps.
Rodrigo tells people in Santa Monica who wonder how to help tsunami victims to “imagine you were alone in the street and everything was gone. You had no clothes. You had no parents to help you. What would you want from the world?”
But although basic supplies are desperately needed, Rodrigo said a human connection is often what people need most.
“It’s about contact. It’s about hugging that kid to let him know that there is help,” she said. “No amount of money can replace that.”
Rodrigo and D’lo, her best friend and partner in Aid to Sri Lanka Tsunami Victims who is also from the country, have both lost a number of friends and family members in the earthquake and floods, but do not want to exploit their personal losses for the sake of their fundraiser.
“We don’t want this to be about us,” Rodrigo said.
D’lo visited Sri Lanka for Christmas and was flying home at the time the Tsunami hit. She spoke about one friend she visited on her trip who was lost in the tsunami.
“She went to the beach that day,” she said. “Everybody in Sri Lanka goes to the beach.”
D’lo was told about the death over the phone just hours after leaving Sri Lanka.
“At that time, I came home, I didn’t know how bad the tsunami was,” she said. “The media was reporting about 3,000 people dead.”
Although her mother tried to hide the bad news from her, D’lo’s cousin called and reported that her friend had been killed.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I had seen her two days before.”
The water is now calm again, and the country is focused on the future, but Rodrigo said rebuilding her country will take three phases, the first being emergency relief — getting food, temporary shelter and drinking water to victims.
Once the emergency situation is over, the reconstruction of infrastructure can take place, and homes, roads and market-places will be rebuilt.
Although most people see the rebuilding process as being over once residents have been returned to their homes, Rodrigo said the hardest work will just be beginning.
“The economy of Sri Lanka has been destroyed,” she said.
Most devastating is the effect the tsunami will have on Sri Lanka’s growing tourism industry. After years of civil war in the country, Sri Lanka was beginning to see a major increase in American and European visitors. And then the tsunami hit, catapulting the country back to square one, she said.
The lingering effects of a wounded economy will hurt Sri Lanka long after electricity and water have been returned, Rodrigo said.
“Countries are lending us money on credit, they aren’t giving it to us,” she said. Rodrigo fears it will be impossible to pay the money back.
Rodrigo said that living in Santa Monica, an affluent city also on the ocean, gives residents a big reason to help victims in Asia.
Not only does “great privilege come with great responsibility,” she said, it is not unrealistic to think this could happen here.
Rodrigo said plans are in the works to turn Aid To Sri Lanka Tsunami Victims into an official nonprofit organization. Rodrigo can then begin work on the second phase of aid: rebuilding homes.
Because her group is not yet an official nonprofit, Rodrigo did not qualify for free shipping to Sri Lanka. Although she said Air Lift USA has been very generous in giving her a discounted rate, money is still needed to pay for shipping.
“All the money needed to ship out aid supplies has come from community donations,” Rodrigo said. “We would not be able to afford all this without that money,”
To donate money or supplies to Aid to Sri Lanka Tsunami Victims, call (310) 576-2008, or donate money online through www.omzen.com.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 17, 2005. Read the original PDF.