Making a Difference: Building Homes for Tsunami Survivors

source: www.walden.edu

Although I was not involved in similar activities before I had breast cancer, I have always believed in the "think globally, act locally" and "be the change you want to see" concepts. Walden's focus on creating social change through one's education was what attracted me to being a Walden learner. It just feels socially and morally right to give back to others as I have received, especially to the poor, such as the Sri Lankans I met in December through a home-building project run by an organization called Amazon Heart.

Amazon Heart is a group of young breast cancer survivors who engage in advocacy, community projects and adventure travel. I met the group’s founders at the fifth Annual Conference for Young Women Affected by Breast Cancer, in Philadelphia in the winter of 2005.

At the time, Amazon Heart was recruiting participants to travel to Sri Lanka at their own expense and build homes for families in need. The trip would also include other activities, such as sightseeing and meeting Sri Lankan breast cancer survivors.

I had a gut feeling that I was supposed to be part of this odyssey. So I completed Amazon Heart’s online application and was accepted to be part of the Amazon Heart Odyssey team. The team worked with an international charity, the Lasallian Foundation, to build six simple houses for poor families in the shantytown of Henamulla, in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The foundation and a local agency, Lasallian Community Education Services, ran the project and chose families especially in need of a new home because their main income earner had either died or was elderly or ill.

Each Amazon Heart Odyssey team member raised funds before the trip to pay for the materials to build the houses, as well as to support basic health care and nutrition programs for local women and children.

Working in teams of three under the supervision of local building tradesmen, our group of cancer survivors hauled bricks and mortared four basic one-room houses with concrete floors, brick walls and weatherproof roofs—in just four days. They were nearly complete when we left. The local tradespeople were finishing the construction a week after we left when a fire hit the shantytown, leaving 150 families homeless. They are in the process of rebuilding the shantytown, and we have been assured that the families we funded (we raised money for an additional four houses to be built) will get their houses.

In addition to building the houses, we raised funds for a new roof for the local preschool and visited breast cancer survivors and a school, where I used some toys to interact with and entertain the children. As a play therapist, I found it particularly fascinating to validate my belief that play is truly an international language that transcends all boundaries of culture, class and religion.

My roommate, Courtney (left) from California, and I with Lasallian Community Education Services preschoolers. Because Courtney came to Sri Lanka on crutches and because I was having pregnancy complications, we got to work at the preschools each day while the rest of the “Amazons” built houses. Courtney is a teacher, and I am a play therapist, so we didn't mind the change of jobs at all!

The odyssey was an amazing opportunity for me to be able to put action behind the blessings and hope that I have experienced as a breast cancer survivor living in America. I am filled with gratitude for all the opportunities we have in our country.

Dr. Debra Doubrava earned her Ph.D. in Psychology with a specialization in Clinical Psychology from Walden in 2005. She works as a therapist with children and adults in an outpatient mental health practice in Harrisburg, Pa. For more about Doubrava, read “A Survivor’s Journey.”