News Update 11

18 Feb 2005

News Update 11 – 18th February 2005

General

Since we told you about the 2 for 1 offer on Air Lanka, this has unfortunately been cancelled by the air line.

Thank you for all the replies concerning the BBC documentary “Horizon”. All responses have been forwarded on to Nick Keegan, our PR guru.

You may have noticed that the total amount has been removed from the website. There are various reasons for this. However, please congratulate yourselves on the latest total of £86,000.

Thank you for everyone who have been filling in the Gift Aid forms – that will make a huge difference to our total. Please note however, that unless you are a UK tax payer, we cannot claim the tax, so there is no need to fill in this form if you do not pay UK tax.

Friends of Unawatuna work.

With the return of Matt Rose to the UK, he has written a full update on the website of his activities for Friends of Unawatuna. I’m sure you will all join me in our sincere thanks for the work on the ground that he, his friend Matt, Justin, and Sam have been involved with, not only in Unawatuna, but many of the affected areas of Sri Lanka.

Extracts of his account for the Friends of Unawatuna are below.

“On the 30th Justin found us a van we filled it up with food (rice and vegetable), plastic sheet, shoes and tools and set off for Unawatuna on the 31st. We arrived late on New Years Eve and took our supplies to the Tamprabane, the security guard there had kept us one Lion beer which Matt, Justin and I shared by torch light as the clock struck midnight. This was one New Year I will never forget!!!

We returned to Colombo the next day and realised at this point maybe we could do more than run up and down to Unawatuna with a van. Justin and John said that they could find us a lorry so we told them to get it. The next day we met up and went to the Pettah wholesale markets in Colombo. Matt and I were both astounded. There was no shortage of anything, literally everything that you could every think of buying was available rice, vegetables, baby milk, feeding bottles, bed mats, clothes, lamps, and shoes etch. This was the case for the next three weeks, there was never a shortage of anything in the market, yet people were in need of basic necessities. I still cannot understand that how it could be that it was business as usual in the markets, yet people were lacking the basics all around the coast.

We took the first lorry to Kennia a small village just south of Trincomolee. This area had been devastated. It was obvious from a drive around that many people must have died. We visited two camps, both in schools, one with 43 families and another with 400 families and a total of around 1700 people. We also visited a village that had been totally destroyed. This had been a fishing village, was relatively poor and had very basic wood built houses. The survivors had begun to build shacks to live in, but had no light, or pots to cook with. We drove 15 minutes and bought lamps and pots and took them back. This situation was repeated everywhere we went, there was no shortage, but there was no money, or distribution infrastructure.

Over the next few weeks we took more lorries back to Trincomolee, to the North near Jafna and to the East near Baticola, as well as repeat trips to Unawatuna. ....

…In Unawatuna itself, we took supplies to Sam’s house where his family bagged it up and distributed it to the local people. In addition, Sam’s wife was cooking everyday for up to 40 people who had been affected by the Tsunami.

Update on Friends of Unawatuna projects by Matt

AnuladeviBalika Vidyalaya School
Galle
Sri Lanka

Principal: Mrs. B. P. Irangani De Silva

A school for girls aged between 6yrs and 14 yrs old with approximately 1000 pupils.

Despite being close to Galle there are a number in girls from Unawatuna who attend this school, Sam’s daughter being one of them.

When I originally visited this school they had seen no-one offering anything and the Principal asked if we would help to supply some books and shoes for the kids that had lost everything (Around 250 girls).

The school is in an area that was hit by the Tsunami and was flooded. Although the buildings were OK, (once they had been cleaned by the teachers and parents), the perimeter wall was destroyed. The Principal asked, as a priority, if we could help with this as she was understandably concerned for the security of the girls.

A parent at the school had offered to supply the blocks and some of the parents said that they would build the wall, however, they required some more materials, particularly cement which is the most expensive element. Of course, we agreed to help with this and to date (the wall was not finished when I left 80 bags of cement had gone into the wall.

Unawatuna School

There were originally two Unawatuna schools, however, one was completely destroyed by the Tsunami. It appears that a decision has been made not to re-build this school and as a result most of the pupils of this school have now been sent to the larger Unawatuna School.

Integrating the two schools has resulted in about 200 more children attending the school.

Many of the children attending this school have been affected by the Tsunami and one teacher was killed.

When we visited the school the Principal (please note, this is not Mr Dissanayake, as previously mentioned) just asked us to provide some flip flops (I think there was a bit of a language barrier!). However, as we were leaving the school the English teacher (Wimal) came running over and asked if we could help by re-fitting two derelict classrooms.

We agreed to fund this project. To date we have refurbished the rooms, added ceilings and purchased new furniture. The school children got involved in doing the painting. The furniture finally arrives on the 25th of February and at this time they are going to have a blessing ceremony to open it and the Principal asked us if we would mind if they named the room in memory of the teacher that died in the Tsunami.

Two computers have recently been donated to the school, however, these are the FIRST computers that they have ever had and as a result the staff are not trained to use them. To try and ease contact I took the English teacher to an Internet Café to teach set him up on email. He had never even used a mouse before. He seemed to pick it up pretty quickly, but I am still waiting to receive an email from him.

The Unawatuna School are fortunate in that they have a teacher training college next door and they have offered to train the staff on how to use the computer. I have always worked in IT and it is really strange to think that these children currently come out of school without having used a computer (it’s a different world!). Wimal knows how important this is and really wants to make the most of computers to help teach English. I suggested that the Internet and Email would be a very good way of allowing students to communicate with English schools and offered to pay for 12 months of dial up Internet use (perhaps this is something we could sponsor on an ongoing basis).

Wimal is a really good guy and has taken on responsibility for making sure that the affected pupils are being looked after. He has constructed a list of every affected person, detailing their situation. Of course, some of these pupils are now being looked after by other family members and he is trying to locate everyone to ensure that they are OK.

Wimal is really ambitious for his own school and is so happy that we have been able to help out his school, however, his interest in the children is wider than just his own school. Wimal is the Southern Area Secretary for the Schools Rugby Association and he wants to use these contacts to help us match up English schools to Sri Lankan schools. Wimal has offered to draw up a list of English teachers in all of the schools in the area so that we can match them up with schools here. At present most of the schools are engaged in looking after affected pupils so are not focused on things like pen pal programs, however, the two schools that I have dealt with directly are both very keen to gain such links.

Wimal arranged for the Principal to write a letter thanking us for our help and another asking if we would help with some other projects that the government are unlikely to fund. A copy of the thank you letter will be posted to the website shortly. One of these projects is a perimeter wall to keep the children out and the cows in. Having stepped out of the van and straight into a fresh cow pat in the school grounds I think this should be a priority!!!! The children found it highly amusing as I tried scraping cow sh1t off my shoe with a small stick and only succeeded in smearing it on my leg.

The Canal Clearance

One of the most important immediate jobs (and by far the most disgusting) was to get the canal moving again. The water was stagnant and seeing as the canal is also used by some as a sewer the potential for disease was significant.

We began work as a small group with a few of the locals, Vee, Jake, Lex (Aleksis) and myself. This was not pleasant and when you add the searing heat of the day it was very tiring.

We eventually found some people willing to work so I funded this for a week for 20 people each day. Unfortunately I had to return home, however, Vee and Lex have done a fantastic job with this and I understand that the canal through Unawatuna is now clear and running OK.

The Orphanage

By far the most emotional experience during my whole time in Sri Lanka was visiting an orphanage of 50 children outside Galle. An American couple had found it a few days before I visited and had already made a fantastic difference.

When they arrived the conditions were a disgrace to human kind. I have included a few points below ..

There was no hot water
There was no piped water into the place
There was no fridge (there are 10 bottle fed infant babies here!)
The government did not allow a washing machine because of the electricity
A 5 year old child with Polio had not been out of his cot for 4 and a half years
The mattresses were disgusting, smelt and were shared by more than one child
Many of the children were found to have vitamin D deficiency, they had not been outside!
There were no toys and the children got no attention
The kitchen was disgusting and very unhygienic
There were no spoons, bowls or kitchenware. 6 children were being fed by one women hand to mouth. One got ill, they all got ill.

I visited the place after it had been cleaned up a little, however, you could still see the way it used to be and as I said before, it was a disgrace. A casualty nurse who works in Liverpool town centre on a Saturday night was one of the first in and she said she had to walk straight out for 5 minutes. She did not know where to start.

I purchased pots, pans, dustbins, lights (it was a dingy place) toys, lots and lots of medical supplies, nappies fans, kitchen utensils, feeding bottles and lots more.

Vee has also donated many things to this place and has fitted them out with bowls spoons and other medical items.

I have left Vee and Lex with some money and they are going to arrange for the stainless steel topped benches in the kitchen (the existing table is crawling with maggots) and some hygienic tables for the children to sit at.

Friends of Unawatuna are now looking into further direct funding of improvements at the orphanage. Expect more news to follow very soon.

Matt’s full story and photos can be found here
Photographs of the FoU projects can be found here

Fundraising

Amongst many others, thank you to …

Blue Rubicon for their very generous donation of £5000.

S'Graffiti picture framers in Stoke Newington have donated £500 thanks to Dan Schneider.

The Ditsum Players sent a cheque for £1,000 raised by a production at the village hall of 'party pieces' whereby people paid to perform pieces of their choice.

Vernon Dean Gillum's primary School, where Matt Rose once attended, have sent a cheque for £250

Please remember the gig on Saturday evening in Northwood. If you are in the area, hopefully you can still get tickets on the door. See attached flyer

Kind Regards

The Friends of Unawatuna