Nasjonal støttegruppe for pårørende, overlevende og berørte etter ...

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Summary
The purpose of this study has been to investigate the activity of the National
support group for those affected by the tsunami either as survivors or relatives
of those who were killed. We have also wished to evaluate the effects of
the group’s activities on its members and to discuss what social function the
support group may have had.
In order to better generalise our findings we have drawn on experiences
from similar support groups that came into being after the Alexander L. Kielland
accident, the fire on the ferry Scandinavian Star, the run aground of the
speedboat Sleipner and the collision between two trains at Åsta.
The report is based on different data sources, a questionnaire among the
members of the support group, interviews with key persons, written documents,
and notes from a field work. The activity of the National support
group is in this way illustrated by both quantitative and qualitative data
(methodological triangulation).
The national support group was formed due to the discontent the affected
felt about the way the authorities handled the tsunami disaster. When the
group started organising, however, the authorities actively contributed to
create a good framework and to recruit new members.
A series of coinciding factors seems to be present when the affected have
formed support groups after disasters and big accidents. Four factors in
particular may contribute to explain how support groups came into being,
namely the self help ideology, cultural distance, problems with the investigation
work and erosion of confidence. We have also seen that time, number
of victims and type of disaster have been of significance.
The national support group had closer contact with central decision-makers
than any former support groups had managed to establish. This may be due
to the fact that in this disaster the authorities were the direct adversary of the
support group. Earlier support groups had mainly had companies as their
adversary. The national support group also received more recognition from
their adversary then former support groups had gained and their demands
were easily accepted. Whereas other support groups have had some hard fights
with their adversaries, the national support group, apart from some difficulties
in the beginning, had good cooperation with the authorities. This resulted