Jayawickreme Foundation: Newsletter No. 3/2006, Weligama, 24.4.2006

German journalists are building Tsunami village in Weligama

“Helft uns leben” is the name of the initiative of the newspaper Group of “Rhein-Zeitung” in Koblenz, Germany, whose objective is to help children in need worldwide. The board of “Helft uns leben” has decided to finance the building of the houses on the 1.2 acre of land given to the Jayawickreme Foundation by the Government to give decent and proper homes to many children who are still condemned to survive somehow in horrible slum like camps. 20 to 25 families will be able to leave those awful nightmarish dwellings as soon as the houses are complete. The families will be selected by a committee appointed by the Divisional Secretariat. The Government has agreed upon to clean up the property and do the infrastructure work so that the building can commence soon. The future village is located about 800 meters away from the sea. www.helftunsleben.de

Kindergarten celebrates traditional Singhalese-Tamil New Year

Kindergarten children have great fun at the New Year competitions at the Jayawickreme Foundation English Education Center. The kids and adults enjoyed the traditional games of the Singhalese and Tamil New Year, which is celebrated on the 13. and 14. of April every year.

A typical New Year meal: Home made sweet meats, cake, bananas and milk rice were served to everybody for lunch after the competitions. But before that the traditional oil lamp was lit and after munching the tasty food the kids received New Year presents from Sujith Jayawickreme.

The Kindergarten children are wearing the national attire: the girls are dressed in lungi and blouses. The boys are clad in sarongs and shirts. More than 200 relatives and friends of the Kindergarten children dropped by to watch the competitions during the morning.

Bright sunshine and 30 Kindergarten children in a jolly good mood made this day a memorable one, even for the more than 200 parents, relatives and friends, who gathered cheerfully to watch the traditional New Year competitions for the kids. The small ones looked so cute dressed in typical national attire. The little girls were proudly walking around in long, colourful skirts (lungi) with matching blouses. The young boys looked quite comfortable in their beautiful sarongs with matching shirts. For one day the free of charge Kindergarten combined afternoon English tuition school for 230 children all in all turned into a merry playground.

After carefree competing in games like musical chair, pot beating, balloon blowing and lightening the oil lamp everybody was invited for lunch with traditional milk rice and home made sweetmeats contributed by the parents.
The music popped up as a special surprise: Local songs mingled with some German Alpine folksongs sung in English under Sri Lankan tropical palm trees, which are so popular over here. Of course there is no proper New Year fun without presents, which were given to the happy children at the end of the merriment. After this fully packed exiting and pleasant morning the tired children went home with beaming eyes. Singhalese-Tamil New Year is celebrated on the 13th and 14th of April annually.

Water for ancient temple

Impressions of the traditional night ceremony at the Polwatte Rajamaha Viharaya Temple in Weligama. The Jayawickreme Foundation has donated the direct water supply with connection, pipelines, basins and taps for the water to the about 200 year old temple. Up to now the water was taken form wells far away as the well water in the temple premises was not suitable for drinking purpose. Chief priest Ven. Kekunewala Uparathana Thero (87), many monks and hundreds of village people attended the colourful night ceremony to launch the water supply, where Sujith and Susanne Jayawickreme were invited as chief guests.

Precious water was flowing out of the tap for the very first time since the Polwatte Rajamaha Viharaya temple was built about 200 years ago. Up to now the monks were drawing water from a nearby well, which is not suitable for drinking purposes. The drinking water was brought from places further away. The Jayawickreme Foundation made the direct water supply possible and donated the connection, pipelines, basins and taps for the water. Chief priest Ven. Kekunewala Uparathana Thero (87), many monks and hundreds of village people attended the traditional, colourful night ceremony to launch the water supply, where countless small flickering oil lamps embraced the beautiful temple area with warm golden lights. Traditional drummers and dancer added a special note to this heartening event.

The decaying shrine room contains original old wall murals, which are fading away and an impressive ancient sleeping Buddha statue. A request was made by the concerned village people to help restore this ancient shrine room and prevent it from collapsing.

Boats for a donation are brought to the place of distribution.Spectacles were donated to 150 old people, who could not read for so many years. Equipment for in- and outdoor games were donated to 30 rural sport . clubs. The youths have a now attractive places again to go to and to excercise in various disciplines. They do not need to hang around any longer exposed to the dangers of drugs, alcohol and sex trade.

2 boats donated

The fishing village Fedderwardersiel in Nothern Germany has donated their 4th boat to Tsunami survivours securing another 5 working places. The Hans-Prinzhorn-Klinik Hemer located in the so called “Sauerland” in the centre of Germany has donated their 2nd boat therefore created regular income for another 5 families, who lost everything due to Tsunami. The boats are complete with proper netting and powerful out board motors and as usual built according to high standards demanded by the Authorities. They are therefore fit for the deep sea. These 10 lucky families have celebrated a happy New Year indeed.

Equipment for 30 rural sport clubs

Sport clubs are centers for the youth to socialize, to get rid of aggressions and frustration, to learn to win and loose in competitions, to stay mentally and physically fit etc. Well equipped sport clubs attract children and young people so that they find a place to go to instead of hanging around on the streets and beaches tempted to alcohol, drugs, prostitution and so on.
Our previous donation to 30 tsunami damaged sport clubs goes a long way and as a result, we were asked by the relevant authorities to provide rural clubs with proper equipment as well to create an appealing environment for the almost forgotten rural youth.

During a ceremony attended by the representatives of the clubs and authorities we have gifted sufficient out- and indoor equipment for 30 rural sport clubs in the Weligama-Welipitiya Divisional Secretariat area.

Specs donation for 150 old people

There were many happy faces to be seen when 150 second-hand spectacles were donated to elderly people in the Welipitiya District Secretariat office. Some old women even cried out of joy, because they could read the papers for the first time after many years in blurredness. The spectacles are collected in Germany.

High quality houses are in demand

In rural and tsunami areas are the housing projects continuing. Due to New Year celebrations, local body elections, shortage of material and unexpected early intermonsoon there is a small delay. However 1 more rural house is under construction and the work on 5 more tsunami houses will commence during the next weeks as soon as the recipient families are identified.
There is still a huge demand for new houses out of the newly legalized 60-meter buffer zone.
Many families are still living in horrible camps. The children are growing up in primitive huts without basic hygienic needs like in slums are. These young tsunami survivours have given up hope to live in a decent home again. They feel forgotten by the rest of the world.
Likewise the old people, who are very much neglected are suffering in loneliness without even spiritual consolation.

For the children as well as for the old people a decent house is so important, means such a lot, because they could live in dignity again and do not need to be ashamed of their slum like environment any longer, where the deadly killer waves have pushed them into from one second to the other.
They are all innocent victims of many empty promises after the fatal waves took it all from them.

Media forum Colombo

A group of experienced journalists and concerned public intellectuals attended an informal inauguration dialog. They recognized the fact that there is a general decline in standards in almost all sectors such as education, the media, academic and public service which has been the result of a range of factors like politicization, increasing intolerance of dissent, lack of professionalism, lack of opportunities for training, public apathy etc. The participants were of the opinion that the prevailing situation in the country is neither conductive for development nor public welfare and needs to be restored as quickly as possible. The group decided to team up, to identify critical issues, analyze them and suggest counteractive and constructive action, which could be achieved in the form of an organized and institutionalized media forum. Susanne Loos-Jayawickreme, who is a journalist by profession, was invited to participate in this joint initiative of the Goethe Institute Colombo and the Social Policy Analysis and Research Center, University of Colombo to establish this media forum.

Growing suicide rate among old persons

Sri Lanka's suicide rate is growing due to the accessibility of a common, poisonous roadside plant - the Yellow Oleander tree. This plant covers the island and people only need one seed from the fruit in a Yellow Oleander flower to kill themselves. Older persons are among those that attempt suicide, possibly due to family tension. Furthermore, 10% of the attempts are fatal, which is much higher than in western countries. Although an antidote is commonly found in the US, the remedy for the poison is too expensive for most people in Sri Lanka.?
This raises worldwide concern and is even mentioned in the weekly newsletter of Global Action on Aging.

100 children sexually abused and exploited daily

A report handed over to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Paris recently revealed that there are at least 100 children sexually exploited or abused daily in Sri Lanka. According to this report foreign pedophiles come to Sri Lanka to have sex with young boys. But it were the girls who suffered most from abuse within the community. The researchers in this first draft concluded there were between 10000 to 15000 boys involved in the sex trade, not only in beach areas but also in the hill country and near other tourist sites. The boys were mostly aged between 8 and 15 years.
Child prostitution was a problem in certain costal areas and according to official estimates there are over 2000 active child prostitutes in the country, but private groups claim that the number is much higher.

200,000 kids not attending school

The Commissioner in the Department of Probation and Child Care said that there are about 200,000 children of school going age who are not attending school. Most of these are in the Moneragala District. Children are used in cane cultivation and small farms, for the trafficking of drugs and as domestic servants. The commissioner said that since education is necessary to guide in decision- making as the child reaches adulthood depriving him of an education can have a big bearing on their future.

Sky rocketing costs

Many came in for a rude shock when they received the last bill: Without informing the costumers the Ceylon Electricity Board has increased the basic charges per unit by 100%. Moreover fuel-, diesel and kerosene charges spiraled up by 8 RS. The heavy impact will be a further burden for the people who do not know how to cope with the escalating of the costs of living any longer. Building material, labour wages etc. are also growing. Bus fares are heavily going up as well. People find it more and more difficult to make the ends meet.

Low quality boats and houses

At least 20% of the already donated boats are of low quality and not robust enough for the sea according to articles appearing in the local media.
Moreover many newly built Tsunami houses, which have been inspected by the relevant authorities, were demolished afterwards as they were constructed in low quality according to various reports.

Cash for trash

Cash given to Tsunami affected families ended up in the husbands’ hands, which was used for alcohol and gambling. This was disclosed among other facts in a case study on “Gender Dimensions of Tsunami assistance” by the former Director General of the National Planning Department. However the study further revealed that the dry rations provided ended up with the housewives.

Low computer accessibility
Only about 5 % of Sri Lankas’ roughly 19 Million population might have access to computers according to estimates, whereas only 2 % of private households are supposed to be equipped with computers and internet connection. This was discussed at a recent media meeting at the German Cultural Institute in Colombo.

Public online forum

We would like to thank Peter W. Gester, founder of the German www.coaching-club.de very much for the support and encouragement by giving us a free of charge column in his open forum, which is easily accessible for everybody. Besides there are much more interesting topics discussed and introduced in this well read public online forum, which is already visited by more than 20000 visitors monthly.

Permanent funding

In the meantime the German charity “Hilfsbrücke” has unanimously decided to sponsor the English school for 50 children permanently as long as there are funds available. The “Hilfsbrücke” is financing this free of charge tuition afternoon school from the very beginning since its inauguration in 2001.

Sunday Times

An article about the Jayawickreme Foundation was published in the Sri Lankan Sunday Times recently. This article is available on our web site.

Please consider giving a donation to the Jayawickreme Foundation so that we can continue to help the needy and poor with our projects. We depend largely on contributions from dedicated individuals like you.