NEWS UPDATE 5 – 21st January 2005.

Dear All,

News update from the Friends Of Unawatuna…..

From the ground in Unawatuna:

Jake Zarins and Jamie Wilkinson are in Unawatuna and have been reunited with Matt Rose, a fellow holiday-maker who stayed on in Sri Lanka helping to get aid, not just to Unawatuna, but to some of the other places in Sri Lanka hard hit by the Tsunami.

Amongst many other things, Matt has bought from his own funds, but on behalf of Friends of Unawatuna, books, pens and shoes to go to the 250 children who have been displaced in the Unawatuna area. The children have started attending the Anuladevi Balika Vidyalaya School in Galle. It is good to know that the children affected can start to have a little structure and normality to their lives. Funds and labour are also being given to rebuild the wall around the school for the school protection and security.

As an aside, this school was positioned behind the Naval base in Galle which, when the Tsunami hit, had the armoury destroyed. When the parents went to the school to start the clearing up process, they found live hand grenades in the school. Luckily no harm was done and the bomb disposal squad made the place safe.

Three JCBs and dumper trucks will arrive tomorrow to help clear a lot of the rubble. This has been organised independently.

The British police have been in Unawatuna today and, with the Sri Lankan police, have exhumed all the bodies for DNA testing. Not a nice job, but unfortunately a necessary one.

Jake has completed filming with Mentorn but is very worried about what they will choose to put in. He would like to make it very clear that he refused to be filmed at the side of the graves and did not answer certain questions that were put to him. He has done everything he could to be respectful and to put our own agenda into the programmebut Jake is unable to control the final edit.

This will be aired on 26^th January, but we’re still not sure whether it will be on Channel 4 or 5. Despite Jake’s concerns it will definitely be worth watching.

Friends of Unawatuna have had another mention in the Times.

FUNDRAISING

Again, this is just a selection of the fundraising efforts that we have been told about. Please don’t forget to let us know what you’re doing so we can advertise it. You can do this by emailing support@friendsofunwatuna.org.uk . Below are a few of the fundraising events. Keep up the good work!

The charity event held by Helen Pearce in Colchester sounded great and they raised £2134.To quote from Helen:

“ We charged four pounds on the door but lots of friends and family gave extra donations which were fantastic.

My brother paid for the hire of the PA, so no money had to come out of the money raised which cost him 200 also he paid 100 to hire his sound man himself, and the sound man gave us 80 of that money to put in the pot.”

Extra thanks to Helen’s brother and the sound man

Helen has also raised over £1000 from work clients giving donations

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The Newark Advertiser has added to the initial donation of £10,000.See the quote from the Editor-in-chief and Managing Director, Roger Parlby:

“Now that the newsagents’ figures for the Tsunami appeal issue are complete I have arranged for a further £654 to be paid today into the Friends of Unawatuna bank account.

This means on the week in question we sold 21,308 copies instead of the normal 20,000 that formed the basis of the first £10,000 that we sent you.”

Thanks to all the readers of the paper last week for purchasing your copy and therefore donating to the fund. Keep buying it for regular updates.

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January 19th, Fundraiser in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

A donation of 700 euros has been made by a fundraising event hosted and organised by the Arend's Nest cafe (www.arendsnest.nl ) and Elizabeth
Lichtenstein. Guests were asked to make a 10 euro door donation. Special thanks to the people in Amsterdam who turned up for the event, The Robin
Nolan Trio (www.robinnolantrio.com ) and the Arend's Nest for making this event possible.

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Charlie Smith’s sponsored walk has made £975, and is hoping to reach £1000. This far outdoes his initial fundraising estimate of £600-700. Well done, Charlie and all your sponsors.

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There’s no stopping the guys from Colchester:

ColchesterHockey Club(of which quite a few of Steve and Wendy's wedding party are members - Kate B, Titch, Minal, and

Denica) raised £200 at a Karaoke last Saturday.

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SouthoverSchoolin Lewes did a brilliant fund raising effort last Friday for the Tsunami appeal& part of the funds are going to the Friends of Unawatuna

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Peter Roffey writes that the fund in the island of Guernsey has so far reached £11,000and are fairly confident of passing £20,000 by April.  This amount has not been added to the FoU total as yet.

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There are twinning opportunities with both Southwold, Suffolk and Telscombe, East Sussex. Both Mayors are promoting and adding to the fund and want to forge links with Unawatuna, especially in terms of community projects.

Many thanks to both.

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This is by no means the limit of our funding, and thanks to all of you for your donations and pledges. Please keep them coming in!

Offers of Help

Thanks to the many of you who are offering your skills – we are compiling all this information on a database so can call on you as we get updates on the current progress of Unawatuna.

Kindest regards to everyone,

Jake Zarins

Jamie & Claire Wilkinson

Jon Walter & Tanya Smart.

Tarquin & Tine Desoutter.