Tsunami disrupts lives of students at USU
At first, Ranga Perera heard that 150 people had died due to flash flooding in his native country, but a Yahoo search showed 700, Perera said.
Compared to the 19 million people that live on the island, those numbers didn’t say much about what had really happened. Still, Perera, a senior at Utah State University majoring in electrical engineering and president of the Sri Lankan Student Association, called his family and made sure that they were OK. His immediate family, in Columbo on the western side of the island, was fine.
Details changed, and numbers climbed. After a few days, “the phones did not work. Probably everyone was calling Sri Lanka or something,” Perera said.
For many USU students, a tsunami used to be just another term studied in Geology 3100: Natural Disasters. But when cameras showed the world 30-foot waves soaring over the unsuspecting citizens of Asia Dec. 26, the word tsunami became more than a definition no textbook glossary could ever do justice.
Iraj de Silva, a 28 year-old graduate student studying business information systems from Sri Lanka, was in his apartment enjoying Christmas break, when his mother called to tell him not to panic, assuring him that his family was OK. He didn’t understand why until he turned on the television and saw the images of the aftermath of the tsunami that washed over his island home.
One out of every 200 Sri Lanka citizens are displaced, according to wire service reports. One out of every 700 citizens in Sri Lanka are dead, but there’s nothing we can do for them, Perera said. He wants to focus on raising money to build shelters for the homeless. Perera’s aunt died in the tsunami and he now worries, as her family is homeless and injured from the wave.
“There’s basically nothing left. That’s what he said,” Perera said of his dad’s trip to the part of Sri Lanka affected by the tsunami.
“We need to try to get the people that lost their houses settled down,” de Silva said. Sri Lanka’s two main industries – fishing and tourism – were carried away with the undertow of the tsunami, and they need a way to make a livelihood, he said.
Many Sri Lankan students wanted to travel to their homeland to help, but instead decided to donate the $1,200 they would spend on a plane ticket to the relief effort, de Silva said. De Silva recently graduated and will be traveling home in February to a completely different home than he originally left to study at USU.
Following the decision to do a fundraiser, the Sri Lankan Student Association contacted USU President Kermit L. Hall for permission to fundraise on campus. USU has responded with a service plan and issued a statement from Hall and ASUSU President Les Essig.
“Utah State University has strong ties to the regions impacted by the tsunami disaster through our students, faculty, alumni, educational outreach, and research efforts. Our hope is to provide a strong sustained contribution to efforts to rebuild broken lives and dreams,” the letter addressed to students, faculty, and staff of USU Hall and Essig says.
Vice President of Student Services Juan Franco has organized several committees to coordinate the fundraising efforts, Mary-Ann Muffoletto of USU’s public relations and marketing department, said. There are committees for fundraising, to identify student needs – should a student need counseling, monetary aide, etc., and a faculty/staff liaison to identify the needs of those working at USU.
“I think it’s really nice that everyone’s getting together. Actually [the support is] even more than what we expected,” de Silva says.
The campus-wide fundraiser that started at the Jan. 8 basketball game. The goal is $100,000, USU’s Wave of Sorrow Web site says.
Perera said he sees USU reaching that goal and would like to see the community reach $150,000 due to the amount of money the prime minister of Sri Lanka needs to rebuild.
The $100,000 goal can be reached if every student donates his or her hourly wage, Perera said.
De Silva spent his three-day weekend putting together fliers and posters so students can see what his country looked like before the tsunami and know where their money will be going.
“We’d like to show people what Sri Lanka was. We’re letting people know what exactly happened and how bad it is,” de Silva said of the Sri Lankan Student Association’s upcoming fundraising efforts.
For those interested in donating online, the USU Wave of Relief site recommends www.give.org. USU recently posted a fraud alert link from the USU student’s Webmail site to a warning from the U.S. Department of Justice about money scams or virus transfers, similar to how the “my doom” virus was transferred last year, the alert says.
Students should not open unexpected attachments and be skeptical of messages claiming to be “surviving victims or foreign government officials asking for help in placing large sums of money in overseas bank accounts,” the alert reads.
Students do not worry about being taken advantage of as long as they use accredited Web sites or donate through USU’s fundraiser. For more information, or if students find themselves victims of this fraud, they can go to www.ic3.gov.
“USU is mainly college kids, but we have a very giving community, so I’m very optimistic,” de Silva said, adding that people started called him asking where they could send money the weekend the tsunami hit Sri Lanka.
“Right now, we need to rebuild. They need homes. That’s the main priority right now,” Perera said.
-natandrews@cc.usu.edu