A portal can now say “we are doing this, this, this and this”. It will not be with reference to anybody else. Here Dinesh delineates relief versus rehabilitation. He didn’t see any of these kinds of attitudes during the relief process. People are dying, people are hurt, houses are falling down and people don’t have anywhere to go. They need to be rescued. But now it was already four months ago that the Tsunami happened and it is merely a thing in memory for most. So now the rehabilitation has a prediction from four months to two and a half years. People are settled in. Then it’s about whether we build a house for you or for the hooker. Maybe that we propose that building ten thousand houses is a good idea. This kind of thing, this is where all those politics of presence come in.
Politics of presence in rehabilitation phase
Even in times of crisis reputation building is very important, more important than collaborating in order to solve the crisis, so it seems argues Dinesh. On the long term NGO’s have an identity. It’s not about how much work the coordinator did with others, but it’s what they are going to say about themselves.
