IsraAID documents tsunami aftermath

Exactly one year after the tsunami, israAID and international aid organization Project Galle are launching an exhibit of 1,000 photographs in Galle, Sri Lanka. The display documents encounters between tsunami victims and volunteers in internally displaced people (IDP) camps in the Galle region.

"These photos capture a moment of change in the lives of people who have lost everything within one moment. For them, the photo constitutes a link between the past and the future. It is especially valuable to the traumatized children, because it helps them to accept the new structure of their family," said project coordinator Dana Manor.

"Many of the approximately 1,000 volunteers who came to the region in the aftermath of the 2004 natural disaster are now returning to Sri Lanka for the tragic anniversary." Manor will return to Israel herself in three days, with "mixed feelings."

The exhibit is about "who helped whom," showing a part of the psychosocial aid given to the people affected by the tsunami, Manor explained.

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