was so happy to have made it again to Sri Lanka with some money, no boxes, but a great feeling of being back.
Sri Lanka is still –in my view- one of the most beautiful places on this planet.
The people are so sweet, there is so much culture and you can see all shades of green in this magnificent country.
However, unfortunately there is still a war going on. The day before I left going to Sri Lanka a minister was killed in Colombo, and the day I left for Holland there was a bus-bomb, again in Sri lanka. So where does that leave Sri Lanka.
A lavish, lush and beautiful country with a handful of tourists and not much money coming in for the ordinary people in the street.
So as long as I have got a sum of money I will go there and will do my bit.
What have we done so far in 2008?
LC packaging (used to be Lammers & van Cleef ) donated 2000 euro.
A 1000 euro we spent on small items for many schools and homes, and the other 1000 euro on a bigger project.
• 17 umbrellas
• 15 rug sacks
• 15 pair of shoes
• 10 metres of fabric plus money for the tailor to make the uniforms
• 50 bars of soap
• 25 bottles of shampoo
• 60 small boxes of chocolate fingers
• 30 t – shirts
• 2 brooms
• 1 field flask
• 15 bed sheets
• Money for creative materials ( for a school with mentally retarded Children )
• 3 emergency lights
• 25 times 200 rupees ( pocket money for children in an orphanage)
• 20 pair of pants
• 40 pair of knickers (2 for each girl)
we gave 3 homes food and 2 homes can rely on us if they have no food left.
When we give food ( and more and more homes need food as world prices have gone up. Less people can afford to donate food .to the homes.) we give things such as coconut powder, gramm, potatoes, onions, spreads (dried fish), tinned fish, milk powder, washing powder and soap.
We always have a present for all the children we see ( singitha home, success orphanage, Providence home, Lewella home, aruna home,
Dharmasoka College, Sarana Sevena boys home and Wettewa Junior school.)
This time I gave the children chocolate fingers. I collected small try-out perfumes at home (Holland) and gave those to the girls.
Each child got 1 or 2 fine liners. These were donated by ms. Croft. I managed to take 500 with me. I had special big balloons on me, these were also donated by Ms. Croft.
We decided to put the other 1000 euro in a new project.
Together with Ramini Smits ( she is born and lives there) we decided after visiting the school for the first time to put the money into this school named Wettewa Junior .
The school itself closed a few years back. In Sri Lanka about 400 schools close each year. Parents who can afford it send their children to ‘better’ schools where they often be taught in English. The teachers themselves get better paid at those schools. So the poorer schools get less children and often with no English. We all know that English is the way up and out of poverty. It is a down going spiral. Besides the above problem there are officially NO nurseries in Sri Lanka. So every nursery is private. I’ve seen rich nurseries and very poor. Those very poor nurseries are there because of dedicated people who want to help and teach. Those schools we try to help.
Anyway going back to the Wettewa school. After a few years a few monks tried to re-open the school and with success. He dug a well so the school had water and opened grade 1. The government said we will pay the salary of the teachers but don’t expect anything else. Last year he started with grade 1 en 2, this year with grade 1.2 and 3 and so on. There is also a nursery available. The headteacher is dedicated and lives in front of the school. The parents help and clean the building. Every one wants it to stay open.
We had some boxes with educational materials left and gave those.
Last year I met a certain Mr. Douglas King, a retired nursery advisor from England. He moved here and is writing books for schools. We asked him to be on the project (he has done sooo many projects) and he came with us on our second visit . He will keep on helping the nursery teacher and all the other teachers who want his help at this school. All materials I have given , he will introduce one step at the time helping the nursery school . We bought 2 cupboards to put the stuff in, and after long discussion what was needed this year, the toilets were the biggest worry. 800 euro will not be enough but Mr. Dougles King will help with the rest of the money.
APPOINT, gave us as last year an amount of money and well 2000 euro.
With this money we continued 2 big projects.
First we continued the project at Dharmasoka College. Last year we did the teachers’ toilets , and this year after much discussion , we will try with some extra money from last year to finish the girls and boys toilets in one go. As prices have gone up.
The other project (sarana sevana boys home) , here stay boys which are sent here by a judge. Those boys look so miserable and traumatised. A very friendly metron looks after them. Last year they could phone us if they would run out of food and cleaning solution. They used this option 3 times last year.
Further more we hope to be able to help this project for a few years to come. They have a few big things they really need.
1= toilets (as always)
2= 1 hot shower( when the children are ill)
3= to lower 1 tap so the younger children won’t get wet if they need to wash themselves.
4= a sick room.
We will start with the toilets this year.
Last but not least we had some boxes left from 3 years ago. We gave them to another 4 nurseries.
We gave Lewella knex.
We gave two other schools, what we call in Dutch prikpennen and lappen. (piercing small holes in paper, for children who can’t cut very well. We gave a monk inlands 500 pens and exercise books and I gave all my friends a nice piece of Toblerone chocolate.