Indian Ocean Tsunami and its influence on the resurgence of social work as an academic discipline in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

In December 2004, the massive Indian Ocean Tsunami hit the coastal areas of Sri Lanka causing a devastating impact on the lives of people. National and International humanitarian aid received in the aftermath was unprecedented. Among this was a team of professors and students from the faculty of Social Work, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, who conducted a summer camp as a social work practice project together with Sri Lankan undergraduates. The objective was to initiate a project for support based on an action research model adopting a short-term design built upon a needs assessment. While critically looking at the process of international support in the context of country’s long history of state welfare and community support systems, the paper also focuses on one major lapse among others, negligence of people’s needs during disaster interventions. The paper attempts to view this situation in relation to the absence of an established social work profession in the country and examines the applicability of an international framework and concepts of social work in developing academic and professional social work in a context as diverse as Sri Lanka.