Evaluation of The Psychosocial Component Of The Project: Lkatr 301, Building Psychosocial Wellbeing Among Individuals, Communities Living In Tsunami Affected Areas, with Improved Responsiveness for The Prevention And Management Of GBV
In the wake of the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka on 26 December, 2004, killing at least 38,000 people, and displacing up to a million more, UNFPA decided to broaden its traditional emphasis on reproductive health to address the psychosocial needs of tsunami-affected persons of the country. After initially considering the development of specific psychosocial programs, UNFPA opted instead to pursue primarily a capacity building approach, with the aim of improving the capacity of the Ministry of Health (MOH), and in particular, the Directorate of Mental Health, to promote psychosocial wellbeing in all districts of the country. Funding was also allocated to the Family Health Bureau (FHB) within the MOH to expand the reach of its Adolescent Life Skills Programme to tsunami-affected areas it had not yet been able to service. Funding was also provided to the Psychosocial Forum within the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) for strategic planning and the publication of guidelines for doing good psychosocial work.
Finally, significant funding was allocated to a new research project within the Social Policy Analysis and Research Centre (SPARC) at the University of Colombo. That project focused primarily on the development of culturally appropriate, empirically sound tools for assessing psychosocial wellbeing in Sri Lanka, based on a locally derived model of psychosocial wellbeing as defined by Sri Lankans themselves. In addition to these explicitly psychosocial projects, a set of gender-focused projects was also funded as part of the overall UNFPA psychosocial funding effort.
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