Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 02
January 22, 2007
Survivors of 2004 tsunami get new homes
Idinthakarai, India
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Two years after a tsunami devastated communities around the Indian Ocean, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) continues to help build hundreds of houses for survivors in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
In India’s Tamil Nadu state, MCC helped build 450 houses in order to relocate the coastal village of Idinthakarai, which was declared uninhabitable after it was damaged by the tsunami. MCC provided an Indian partner organization—Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA)—with about one-third of the funds for the more than $2 million construction project. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) matched MCC’s contribution.
The Idinthakarai houses, which cost approximately $5,300 each to build, were handed over to recipients on Nov. 22. This was the largest of MCC’s post-tsunami construction projects that have been completed to date. Several more large construction projects were recently completed or are underway—including an additional 287 houses in India, 181 in Sri Lanka and more than 300 in Indonesia.
The Idinthakarai project provided families with three-room, reinforced concrete houses that are resistant to earthquakes and other disasters. Additional funding partners included CASA and Canadian Presbyterian, Anglican and United Church of Canada organizations.
“For most people, it’s a step up,” explains Ed Miller, an MCC India country representative, adding that the region’s traditional construction materials are wood and bamboo.
Finding the right site for the project was a challenge because of the village’s reliance on fishing, Miller says. The Indian government required the village to be moved inland because of the danger of tsunamis and typhoons. The new site is about 750 metres from the shore, which meets the government’s safety requirements and still allows fishers to walk to their boats.
Miller says that CASA is also helping the newly relocated village to develop alternative sources of income because the local fishing industry is in decline. This work includes planting more than a million trees on the village’s former site to harvest fruit, nuts and timber.
According to Jeffrey Yoder, MCC’s tsunami response coordinator in Aceh, Indonesia, providing houses to families whose homes were destroyed is a very significant way to help in the healing process. Many Acehnese tsunami survivors have lived in tents and “barracks”—small, multi-family dwellings—for the last two years.
“After such a long period of being cooped up and feeling like they’re right on the heels of the people next to them, they finally have their own place, and it provides them an opportunity to move forward,” Yoder says.
MCC names interim executive director
Akron, Pa.
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Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has selected Bert C. Lobe of St. Jacobs, Ont., to serve as interim executive director for the next year. He started on Jan. 8.
“We had some very good candidates that we interviewed,” says Ron Dueck, chair of the MCC board. “Bert brings a wealth of experience and leadership from both within and from outside of MCC.”
Lobe’s appointment follows the Oct. 23 resignation of Robb Davis, who joined MCC as executive director in June 2005. Lowell Detweiler served as acting director following Davis’s resignation.
Lobe and his wife Martha first served with MCC in the 1960s in rural India in a famine relief program, and later, from 1977 to 1980, as directors of MCC’s program in India and Nepal. Lobe has since served as MCC’s Asia director, overseas director for MCC Canada and director of China Educational Exchange. During the intervals away from MCC, Lobe was principal of a public high school in Saskatchewan and Rockway Mennonite Collegiate in Kitchener, Ont., and served as associate principal at the Hong Kong International School.
In 2005, the Lobes served a six-month term as interim country representatives for MCC in Bangladesh. Lobe has most recently worked with MCC to develop a program to more deliberately engage youths and young adults in the organization’s mission. He currently is vice-chair of Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ont., and moderator of Waterloo North (Ont.) Mennonite Church.
Dueck says the committee that selected Lobe was struck by his ability to provide leadership in the context of building a strong team, by his long history with MCC, and by his good connections with churches in Canada and the United States.
After Davis’s resignation, the MCC executive committee asked staff to continue moving forward key initiatives, such as changes in the MCC governance structure, network facilitation, international program initiatives, a salary review and human resources initiatives.
As he reflects on his new role with MCC, Lobe notes that the ultimate measure of an organization is not where it stands when circumstances are calm. “It has much more to do with how we find our way when there are challenges, and in a learning organization these are a constant,” he says. “To face the challenges with both a sense of gratitude to God and a passion for the dispossessed is the task of the church.”
He draws on the words of Jean Vanier, author and founder of L’Arche communities, while pondering the challenges ahead. The foundational principle for MCC, Lobe says, “is to open our hearts and minds to the needs of others.” This implies, he says, “a quality of observation and listening, as well as a commitment to action.”
—MCC release