There has been a plethora of psychosocial interventions in the tsunami region – some have spoken of a psychosocial industry! Either with programmes which are specifically psychosocial or with psychosocial aspects to more traditional aid programmes. In general, they include ‘counselling’, game-play therapy, art therapy, logopedics, relaxation and meditation programmes, focus groups, playgrounds for sports and physical exercise, all kinds of support networks – not to mention entire communities submitted to clinical investigations on their traumatic experiences by NGOs or university consultants, who often disappeared without trace…

Terre des hommes wanted to go further. Along with the Centre for Humanitarian Psychology (CHP), it had begun a scientific investigation into the pertinence of their recreation centres, first in Bam(Iran) in 2004, with the aim of verifying whether they had any beneficial effects on the distress of children. This effort has been carried out then in Sri Lanka in the post-tsunami context, where Terre des hommes has asked the Centre for Humanitarian Psychology to run an identical evaluation of their two year psychosocial programme.

This mandate has been conducted over several stages. The first, begun in September 2005, produced an evaluative survey of the psychosocial state of children attending 18 of a total of the planned 25 recreation
centres, in the regions of Batticaloa and Ampara, on the East coast of Sri Lanka. A mid-term report presented the initial analysis at the end of 2005. A second survey, using the same tools, was carried out in August 2006. The present Report completes this final stage. It compares the two series of data produced by the research, allowing for the verification of hopefully positive effects of recreational activities on the children who attended the Tdh centres.