High rates of desperation in Fiji after Cyclone Winston

Transcript

Counsellors helping people in Fiji recover after Cyclone Winston say up to two people in each village they're visiting are in a desperate state psychologically and many others are severely affected.

They say children are also suffering trauma two months after the category 5 storm hit.

Sally Round has been visiting Fiji and filed this report.

The trauma of the devastation caused by Cyclone Winston is holding many back from recovery. Counsellors from the local NGO Empower Pacific are among teams of people going out into communities to help with the psychological effects of having lost their livelihood, a roof over their head, crops or familiar surroundings. Kelera Batibasaga has been to many villagers where lives have been all but destroyed.

KELERA BATIBASAGA: Wherever we go people are crying, people are talking about it, and like we have said before, it will take time, a very very long time for them to rebuild their life again.

Her colleague Salvin Singh says among the 50 to 100 households in each community the level of extreme stress is high.

SALVIN SINGH: We could not talk to everyone in the village but there might be one or two cases in all of the villages I would say on a very high note of hopelessness, don't know what to do and they might think that it's not worth living will all this situation and it would never be improved.

The counsellors refer people in the depths of despair to other health professionals. They say anxiety is rife where people have lost their entire source of income. One village, which makes traditional sasa brooms from coconut leaves, has no cash flow after their coconut trees were ruined.

Now when they don't have that, that's where the anxiety level is high most of the time. Like if they are having their dinner today they'll be thinking about tomorrow, the day after.

The UN children's aid agency UNICEF says one in five children are still not making it to school. Kelera Bataibasaga says for those that do turn up it is hard to concentrate.

KELERA BATIBASAGA: When they try to get back to school, their mind is just blank, it's trauma and the children experienced that - roof being blown off, things being dragged from one corner to the other corner. That is something that the children are still talking about, they forget about school things.

At the Fiji Red Cross headquarters in Suva, Hollie Griffin has been helping train counsellors who are going out into affected communities. She's had experience in Christchurch after the earthquakes. She says Fiji's social structure and traditions are helping people recover.

HOLLIE GRIFFIN: They're a really social society, they have really strong community generally and some really positive coping strategies because of that. They stick together and talk and support each other in ways that in Christchurch sometimes we needed to work on.

The government has announced a housing rebuild scheme and an adopt a school programme aimed at businesses and those overseas to help people recover. But it says it still needs more international help.