Sun, Oct 24, 1999 page2

• MSF gives Taiwan food for thought on psychological side of reconstruction

  MENTAL HEALTH MSF has inspired Taiwanese to invest in community work to provide the psychological foundation for reconstruction of healthy communities

  • By Erin Prelypchan / STAFF REPORTER
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  As delegates from the Nobel Award-winning group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) leave Taiwan today, organizers of the trip are turning their attention to finding ways to implement the group's suggestions regarding long-term, community-based earthquake recovery.

  "We had some communication problems [with MSF] and many things were a mess, but in terms of understanding psychological recovery from the earthquake, I'd say we succeeded," said Chen Ying-wei, one of the trip's organizers.

  The MSF delegation, which came to Taiwan last week to share the experience its members gained during recovery efforts after the 1995 Kobe earthquake, ended its visit yesterday with a discussion of what Taiwan can do now to recover from the quake.

  Hiroko Kuroda, a nurse from Kobe who worked for four years in the area's temporary housing communities, reiterated remarks made earlier in the week by other MSF delegates -- that rebuilding communities takes years and a significant volunteer commitment.

  Kuroda, who spoke through Chiang Ping-kun -- chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development -- said residents of Kobe's temporary communities had a greater tendency toward divorce, alcoholism, unemployment and depression.

  The challenge for health care workers and volunteers there was to help build social networks in temporary communities where more often than not, people did not know their neighbors.

  Their work, she said, involved much more than medical care.

  "It's about respecting life," she said.

  MSF Japan's press officer Daisuke Imajo said the situation in central Taiwan might be quite different from that in Kobe.

  "Taiwan might be more complicated. Settling into temporary housing might take longer," he said.

  People who take government housing subsidies might slip through the cracks more easily, he said.

  National Taipei Teachers' College art professor Yang Meng-cheh (楊孟哲) said his students who accompanied MSF to disaster sites had seen something far more practical than the theory they learn at school.

  "One 70-year-old Aboriginal woman said she had lost her children, grandchildren and husband. She said that the government had given her a lot of compensation money, but whether you use an abacus or a calculator, it doesn't add up. Then I understood what psychological healing was about. It was more important to spend time with her than give her money," he said.

  One of Yang's fourth-year art students said he had learned a lot from the visits.

  "In the beginning, I was not really sure what [MSF] was supposed to do. But they encouraged us to really think about what we can do [for quake victims]," he said.

  He and other students who visited disaster sites plan to report back to their classmates, and they are considering organizing weekend art activities for children in disaster areas, he said.

  "Kids often express themselves better through drawings than through words. Maybe we can help them this way," he said.

  Chiang, responding to Kuroda's suggestion that long-term commitment from volunteers was the key to rebuilding communities, said he was not sure how Taiwan could put this into practice.

  "A month after the fact, everyone is tired. Can the volunteers keep going? The army is OK, but as for Tzu Chi and other such groups, what are they going to do?" asked Chiang.
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