Getting down to business of rebuilding
Grad student taps Harvard resources to aid Sri Lanka
Nayana Mawilmada hadn't planned to go home when he graduates from Harvard Business School this spring. He's reconsidering, though; now that the fishing industry has nearly been decimated, tens of thousands of people have died, and nearly 1 million are homeless in his native Sri Lanka.
Although his immediate family and his wife's immediate family were not harmed by the tsunami, he feels compelled to return by the victims, including his cousin's wife's family, who have died.
It didn't take long before Mawilmada started raising money for the emergency relief efforts. Now he's thinking about how to help in the long term, by possibly rebuilding communities, schools, or the fishing business in Sri Lanka. He hopes to tap into the brains and business sense at Harvard to devise long-term assistance with reconstruction.
''It's less about the money now and more about getting tangible programs on the ground," says Mawilmada, 32, who is working out of his bedroom to make this happen. Although many of his fellow students were on vacation, he hopes that once classes resume in the middle of this month he will be able to collaborate with Harvard's many graduate schools.
Mawilmada has already reached out to his classmates, asking via e-mail that they donate to the relief efforts. Within three days, he says, they had donated more than $8,000 to the Boston chapter of the American Red Cross, and by Wednesday of last week, the Harvard community had contributed more than $75,000, with the university pledging to match student contributions up to $100 each. Because donations are going directly to the organization, Mawilmada says it is difficult to track exact amounts.
Mawilmada has also been directing donors to the nonpartisan website HelpSL.org, which was initially set up to connect Sri Lankan survivors and relatives as well as get information to the Sri Lankan community in the United States. Mawilmada says the site does not tout organizations that favor either the Tamil or Singhalese, the ethnic groups that have long been at war in Sri Lanka. Of Singhalese origin and married to a Tamil, these distinctions are especially frustrating for Mawilmada; he is hopeful that some good may come out of the tragedy.
''These two groups are starting to come together for the relief efforts," he says.
''Most of us want to be there now, so we can help directly," said Sanith Wijesinghe, a Sri Lankan who is doing postdoctoral work at MIT. His immediate family is safe. Wijesinghe, 30, was planning to leave for Sri Lanka two days ago to spend at least a month. He plans to be in touch with other Sri Lankan students at MIT, who will help to coordinate a long-term plan for assistance.
Wijesinghe hopes to set up something tangible, helping with orphans or schools, possibly. ''The immediate humanitarian relief has been largely taken care of. More important is focusing on the longer term and the reconstruction efforts."
Like Mawilmada, Wijesinghe is hoping to tap into his academic community and its assets.
''Knowledge, expertise, ability to plan logistics. These are the kinds of things that a small country like Sri Lanka has no experience in," he said.
Mawilmada still has to decide what he'll do after graduation.
''Will I be more useful to Sri Lanka being out here doing my advocacy work, or being there?" He said that what happens during the next few months, and the plan that emerges for the reconstruction, will help him decide. 