Bir

 

People who suffer from trauma often experience a sense of being isolated. Lost and alone. After the tsunami, communities that would ordinarily have supported survivors in their grief and anxiety were, in many cases, literally washed away. In the Andaman Islands of India, this problem was especially acute. Survivors from many islands were relocated to temporary shelters on the main islands, far from their homes and often with survivors with different languages, cultures and religions.

Bir Kumar, a young man from the Andaman Islands, lost both his parents in the tsunami and spent weeks looking for them. They were never found. For months afterward, Bir was unable to work. He had trouble eating and sleeping and struggled with deep depression and thoughts of suicide. He still bears physical and emotional scars from that experience. Eventually, Bir received training as a social worker from the West Bengal Voluntary Health Association, an MCC partner organization. Bir’s work in the shelters, helping to create a new community for tsunami survivors, has also helped him to understand and recover from his own trauma.

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