Source: Rotary
Date: 02 Mar 2006
By Bettina Kozlowski
Rebuilding after the December 2004 tsunami that devastated southeast Asia
will not happen in one momentous event. Rotarians Elias Thomas III and Mark
Little know it will happen, instead, person by person and brick by brick.
Not content with sending checks for tsunami relief, Thomas, a past governor
from the Rotary club of South Berwick, Massachusetts, USA, and Little, from
the Rotary club of Norwich St. Edmund, Norfolk, England, decided they
wanted to help build a village in India for tsunami victims. The village,
called Pannithittu, is located on the coast of south India's state of
Pondicherry. Pannithittu has become the first new permanent village for
families left homeless by the tsunami in India.
Thomas and Little first learned about plans to build Pannithittu in April
2005 during their first tsunami mission in India. Arriving with nearly
US$175,000 in seed money from Rotarians in England, and the United States,
the two friends hoped to roll up their sleeves and join the rebuilding
efforts of Project Hope. Swami Chidanand Saraswati, a revered spiritual
leader and humanitarian activist, heads the initiative to rebuild
post-tsunami communities in India.
Construction of Pannihittu was delayed, however. "It took cutting through a
lot of red tape to get the permission to build from the local authorities,"
says Little from his home in Norwich. "There was no land available for
building the village."
It wasn't until January 2006 that Little and Thomas could lay their own
eyes and hands on the construction of Pannithittu.
After finally getting the green light from local authorities, Project Hope
workers in only four months had nearly completed building the 100 homes.
When they arrived to haul granite and bricks, Little and Thomas were
greeted by some of the Pannithittu's new residents, who had placed Rotary
International plaques on the wall of each house.
The Indian construction crew was a bit stunned to see Thomas, Little and a
friend of Little's toiling around the clock alongside the locals, assisted
only by a handful of teenage Indian Rotaractors.
"They thought: 'What are these bizarre strangers doing here, leaving their
jobs behind to scrape the soil and haul granite on the other side of the
world?' " says Thomas.
The ice broke, however, when Little showed his Indian colleagues photos of
Thomas with the originator of Panithittu, the revered swami. "That brought
us their respect," says Little. "It opened their eyes to why we were here."
Little and Thomas are proud of the modern features of the 100 homes in
Pannithittu. Each home features modern plumbing, a well, and separate areas
for kitchens and bedrooms.
The two friends saw more than brick and mortar as evidence of their hard
labor. During their first tsunami mission, Thomas and Little helped Project
Hope build an orphanage in Cuddalore, India, which Rotarians from the
United States, England, and India helped finance.