My experiences on flood relief

Dear Friends,

I would like to share my experiences that happened while distributing relief materials in a flood affected village.
We got three polythene rolls and 10000 chlorine tablets from our Bihari friends who are contributing with lion hearts for flood relief. We contributed a 150 food packets containing chura-gur to supplement the distribution effect. There is flood everywhere as you must be watching on your TV.
The question facing us was managing expectation as we had so little things to distribute. There were news of crowds rioting to get relief materials and reliefworkers getting injured in melee.Our material was just enough to help 50-60 families. We chose a village maksaspur, jagdishpur block in bhagalpur after moving around in the area. The roads are broken and villages are cut off.
How to reach the village was the next problem. We have to decide to wade through the waist deep water and walk against the current. The experience of walking through the water set off a thinking process in me. The land on which i was walking was a paddy field some days ago. People would have planted with great hopes despite flood problem. The land was now silted with sand of river. I was thinking about my relevance of education which took me through 5 years of dentistry in manipal and 2 year of rural management from IRMA. What could i do for them.I reached the village after being held by two people who prevented me from flowing with fast stream. The village was SC dominated. Most of them were malnourished. there was ususal fights regarding someone cornering more packets of food and who should get polythene sheets. But we managed somehow without getting beaten.I was thinking that distributing the things, we may have given some relief. I thought of health camps and livelihood support for them. But the real problems brought me down to earth from high pedestal with a loud thump in mind.
The villagers problem was to do shit every day. The land is flooded. So where do they go. There is no toilet in village. The solution was climbing on tree branches and shit while sitting there. these problems was even more embarrassing for women folk. For reaching the nearest roadside, you have to wade through the water in early morning daily.

I was thinking of all developmental debates that took place in IRMA. I could not imagine some one thinking of such problems. Let alone discussing it.

There is a pattern behind every recurring event and that pattern is due to some structural problem and systemic problem. The floods are recuring events every year in Bihar. there are 1000s of crore that govt spends every year with no accountability. Only the GOVT Officials or babu will know where the money went.

I corresponded with SDTT for flood relief. They warned me not to get into that process as a new set up. The subtext was that flood relief has been used by NGOs to siphon of money who survive whole year on it. So to save your reputation, do not get into it.

The questions is that we donot trust government. We do not trust civil society organisations. so who will give relief or work for betterment of people?
We are managing through Bihari network and its individuals who are coming forward to contribute their hard earned income for native land. But that amount may be good for few villages but not for a district.
So, if someone want to bring some changes at system level, it will require huge resources. These resources are owned by govt and UN agencies.

The question is how do we go forward on these kind of issues. Do we keep focussing on events only or systemic problems which cause this.Flood is just one of the issue.

The questions is for everyone who think.

The solution is known to everyone. The question is how the solutions will get implemented.

Can you help?


Regards

Dr Ravi Chandra