When schoolteacher M. Shihama was put in charge of a class of children described as unruly and slow learners, her heart sank.

"At first, I was reluctant to take them on," says the social science teacher at Al-Falah high school in Negombo in the western Gampaha District, adding that she feared that her new charges were just troublemakers.

"But then I found that the children were actually miserable because they had been told they weren't as good as the others," she says.

Talents

Using skills she learnt at a workshop on post-disaster mental health, Shihama coaxed her students - some of whom are still shaken after the 2004 tsunami - to make the most of their talents. She was pleased when colleagues soon began to see changes in the young people's behaviour.

Shihama is one of almost 7,000 Sri Lankans, 1,000 of them teachers, who have been trained in psychological first aid, community and personal mental health and stress management as part of a 5 million Swiss franc post-tsunami psychosocial programme funded by the American Red Cross.

"They have been trained to be the first responders who can help survivors by contributing to their long-term resilience and their ability to cope with what's going on," said Kelly Bauer, the American Red Cross' information and reporting delegate for Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Partnership

The three-year project, run in partnership with the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society, is due to finish in five tsunami-affected districts - Matara, Galle, Kalutara, Colombo and Gampaha - in nine months. Some 8,000 people will have been trained by them and an estimated 250,000 people have benefited, according to Bauer.

In the severely tsunami-battered southern districts of Galle and Matara, Nadeeja Abeydheera, the Sri Lanka Red Cross' psychosocial support officer for the south, has seen how post-disaster psychological support for community responders has paid off during recurrent tsunami alerts in the past two years.

"There is a great sense of participation and involvement in the communities," she said. "The people we have trained take the lead to evacuate others, take them to safe places, pass on information and keep the community together."

Benefits

According to Justin Curry, the programme's regional technical adviser, the programme has great psychological benefits. "It is designed to neutralise the victim mentality."

The programme does not deliver traditional psychiatric treatment for mental health problems, but focuses on knitting together communities that have become unravelled after a disaster has struck, and equipping them to face future calamities.

"The basic principle underlying the programme is that a disaster not only impacts on individuals, but also pulls communities and support systems apart," he said.