Children of Tsunami: No More Tears

Children of Tsunami: No More Tears is a 24-minute documentary film that was produced at the end of 2005. The program depicts the lives of eight children in four Asian countries during the year following the Indian Ocean tsunami that struck South and Southeast Asia on 26 December 2004. It was co-produced by the Singapore-based regional news and current affairs channel Channel News Asia, in partnership with TVE Asia Pacific. It was broadcast Asia-wide by the Channel News Asia on the 26 December 2005, the first anniversary of the Asian tsunami, and has since been repeated several times.

Production

The film was shot in eight locations in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand and shows three girls and two boys aged eight to 16 years from different backgrounds and nationalities. All the children are from average families affected by the disaster in different ways: some lost their loved ones; others lost their homes and property or were thrown out of their jobs. The film was one of several media outputs of the media project launched by TVEAP Asia Pacific, a non-profit media foundation. From February to October 2005, TVEAP commissioned local film-makers who made monthly visits to two families in each country. Based on location filming and field investigations, they produced television, video and web stories for national, regional and global dissemination. These visits resulted in monthly video reports which "captured the stories of the children, their families and their communities" as they coped with many challenges in rebuilding their shattered lived. These video reports are still available at the Children of Tsunami website.

The regional production team comprised supervising producer Bruce Moir, production assistant Yohan Abeynaike, production manager Manori Wijesekera, and executive producers Joanne Teoh Kheng Yau and Nalaka Gunawardene. Meanwhile, TVE Asia Pacific produced a longer documentary titled Children of Tsunami: The Journey Continues (48 minutes). It is meant to be a story of "their personal stories of anguish and survival, courage and resilience". This longer version has had substantial broadcast outreach, having been broadcast on 17 Asian TV channels since its initial release in December 2005, and been versioned into several Asian languages. It has also had wide distribution on video and DVD formats to educational, civil society and humanitarian groups across Asia and beyond. Both documentary films continue to be screened at meetings, conferences, film festivals and other public and private events, catalyzing discussion and debate on Asia’s recovery from the 2004 tsunami. TVEAP has produced an educational outreach section of the website that enables schools, universities and other groups to use films for learning about disaster recovery.

Format

While the eight tsunami-surviving children served as "story guides," the filming also covered their extended families, neighbors, and local communities. Using their specific experiences, the film showed how tsunami recovery was progressing – or, in some places, stagnating – across affected Asia. Instead of being laden with data and statistics, as most documentaries on the subject did, these films allowed the tsunami-affected people to express their views, frustrations and even anger in their own words. The eight families participated in this project with informed consent, and with no material benefits for themselves.

The eight children featured in the project were: Selvam (13) of Tamil Nadu, India, Mala (11) also of Tamil Nadu, India, Putri (8) of Aceh, Indonesia, Yenni (15) also of Aceh, Indonesia, Heshani (13) of Matara, Sri Lanka, Theeban (14) of Sri Lanka, Bao (16) of Phang Nga, Thailand and Beam (8) of Phang Nga, Thailand.

References

External links

• Official website
• TVEAP Director Nalaka Gunawardene looks back at Children of Tsunami experience
• TVEAP Programme Manager Manori Wijesekera on "Reconstruction Tsunami Aid"
• Meet the eight children and families who participated in Children of Tsunami
• Meet the four story teller teams and regional production team
• Children of Tsunami revisited two years after the disaster