Children of the Tsunami: No More Tears
Children of Tsunami: No More Tears is a documentary film that captures the highlights - and lowlights - in the lives of eight children, in four Asian countries, for a year after the Indian Ocean tsunami hit South and Southeast Asia on 26 December 2004.
This film was shot in eight locations in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The stories is AbOUT three girls and two boys aged eight to 16 years. They come from different backgrounds and nationalities - but all belong to statistically average families that were 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 Children of Tsunami media project launched by TVE Asia Pacific, TVEAP, a non-profit media foundation that works across Asia communicating development issues through television, video and web.
From February to October 2005, TVEAP-commissioned local film-makers made monthly visits to two chosen 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.
While the eight Tsunami-surviving children served as ‘story guides', the filming also covered their extended families, neighbours and local communities. Using their specific experiences, Children of Tsunami 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.
Children of Tsunami: No More Tears runs for 24 minutes, and was produced at the end of 2005. 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 first anniversary of the Asian tsunami on 26 December 2005, and has since been repeated several times.
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 which was titled Childreno of Tsunami: The Journey Continues (48 mins). It is meant to be a story of "their personal stories of anguish and survival, courage and resilience".
This longer version has had subtantial 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.
The eight children featured in Children of Tsunami 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.
External links
- TVEAP Director Nalaka Gunawardene looks back at Children of Tsunami experience
- TVEAP Programme Manager Manori Wijesekera on ‘Deconstructing 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