How Community Partnerships Create Capital? Social Capital, Donor Dependency and Rehabilitation Efforts of the Tsunami Affected Fishing Communities

Abstract only.The paper empirically illustrates the social capital status of the tsunami resettlements\ud and its impact on donor dependency. After five years of Indian\ud Ocean tsunami, study investigates the resettled fishing communities in\ud eastern coast of Sri Lanka. Sample composed of 200 fishing families resettled\ud in new locations but not in their original places. Cluster sampling\ud technique was adopted to select the fishing families and interviewer\ud administered; pre-tested questionnaires and focus group discussions were\ud implemented to collect the data. Results revealed that fishing communities\ud are multi ethnic and multi religious in nature and Tamils and Muslims were\ud the dominant groups. Tsunami as well as new re-settlement schemes in\ud new locations were destroyed the generations old community bonds.\ud Conflicts were the common feature among re-settlers and existing villagers\ud in new locations and social workers and administrators have to work hard\ud to create new ties among them. Fishers were categorized into 3 groups\ud (high, medium and low) based on their level of social capital. Resettlements\ud having high level of social capital were less donor dependent\ud compared to low levels of social capital. The main features of the high\ud social capital re-settlements were family composition and occupation were\ud similar to old establishment. Moreover, re-settlements with disturbed old\ud village mechanism and fishers mixed with other occupancies showed low\ud level of social capital and high donor dependency