Contribution of NGOs on Post Tsunami Livelihood Activities in the Batticaloa District

Abstract

The Batticaloa district just had recently begun to emerge from the civil war when the Tsunami hit. Coastal line of Batticaloa was destroyed by the Tsunami. The people in this coastal line have been severely affected due to the Tsunami. Having lost their houses, property and livelihood, the people in these areas faced with unstable food security situation, malnutrition of children and unemployment. This made significant damage in livelihood activities in the district. Therefore it is an urgent need to restore the livelihood activities in the district. The main objective of the present study is to explore the contribution of the NGOs in the livelihood activities in the Batticaloa district after the Tsunami disaster. Data on variables namely Resettlement, living standard, health, drinking water, education, infrastructure, market facilities, micro finance, income enhancement and NGOs project suitability were collected through a well structured questionnaire. Families who were randomly selected from the eight affected D.S division in the Batticaloa district. A field work was conducted during the period between 02nd of March – 15th April 2006. Under the univeriate measures, likert scale ranking were used to analyze the data through SPSS 11.0 The study reveals that the NGOs’ role in the resettlement, drinking water, education, income enhancement, infrastructure and living standard were in satisfactory level. However health, market facilities, micro finance and NGOs’ project suitability were in the dissatisfactory level. It is recommended that in order to restore the livelihood, the government and non governmental organizations should mainly focus on the areas such as health, micro finance and market facilities in the district.