It's almost a year on since the tsunami and for many the 26th December is going to be a very tough day. The village I worked in has some lovely plans for the day to remember all those that were lost. For them it will be a day of mourning but also a day to start looking ahead.
There is still a huge amount to be done there, and they still need donations to help them rebuild their lives. FINALLY they have a very simple online payment system up and running. If you'd like to give a little to help them move on just press the 'Donate Now' button on the home page of the website, it only takes a couple of minutes.
www.unconditionalcompassion.com.
I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to those of you that have donated this year, whatever the amount - a little goes a long way there. Keep looking at the website to see how your money is being spent. Recent donations have continued to help the villagers in Seenigama, and on top of this the charity has started to spread its aid to those in the neighbouring villages. Currently the website cover story is all about the sports project I set up, and Steve Waugh / Kapil Dev's visit to launch it last week.
Below is a recent update that's been sent to the press about the damage caused last year and how the Foundation of Goodness is helping the villagers to move on. This is where your money has gone and will continue to go, contributing to the amazing work that Kushil and his charity have accomplished this year.
I guess it's the season to take stock, appreciate what you have and help those who have nothing.
I hope you all have a good Christmas.
Press update
The village of Seenigama is near Hikkaduwa, 96km south of Colombo and just north of Galle. Seenigama sits in one of the worst tsunami affected areas in Sri Lanka, and is 500m along the train tracks from the tsunami train in neighbouring village Pereliya. With coverage of the tsunami anniversary being current we wanted to make you aware of an incredible Sri Lankan run charity set up by Kushil Gunasekera who was born in Seenigama. Kushil has a successful sugar business in Colombo and is the manager of famous Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan, but has dedicated this last year to Seenigama and has donated his house there to the village.
The charity is called the Foundation of Goodness and is unique in the area as it has rebuilt in ways villages in other areas of Sri Lanka are still unable to. This is due to the drive of Kushil and also to the lack of dependence on aid from the government or NGOs. The Foundation of Goodness works through individual and group donations so they are able to move quickly without the frustrating bureaucracy of the NGOs. The Foundation was set up 6 years ago to help the poorer people of Seenigama, but since the tsunami it has increased its work to help the village and surrounding areas (such as Pereliya) to recover from the terrible devastations last year. The Foundation is staffed by local villagers.
The tsunami damage was immense:-
§ the waves came inland an astonishing 2km
§ 10% of the villagers were killed, sadly a lot of children and elderly people who could not swim or fight against the forces of the wave
§ the houses in the 100m zone were destroyed and hundreds of others were badly damaged
§ 1500+ people were killed on the tsunami train, many from Seenigama as after the first wave they ran to the train for safety but tragically the second wave tossed the train into the jungle and many perished
The rebuilding work has been incredible, particularly as so many other Sri Lankans still live in camps or temporary houses. There has also been a lot of work to provide new livelihoods and employment opportunities. Previously 90% of the villagers practiced illegal coral mining (this has been going on for 100 years), which was one of the reasons the wave had such an impact as there was no reef protection:-
· 226 houses have been completely rebuilt with electricity, 200 partly damaged houses have been rebuilt, 65 houses are under construction, and 209 more houses are in the planning (all in Seenigama and surrounding villages)
· over 400 people have been provided with new livelihoods (i.e. new 3-wheelers, new fishing equipment, new sewing machines, coir yarn spinning equipment, shops rebuilt, and many more)
· new industries have been set up - a cement block factory, a brush block factory, and coir yarn business, and handicrafts centre, with more ideas on the way such as a garment factory.
On a less immediate level other projects are underway to try to help the lives of the villagers particularly the young people. The Foundation runs computer, English, and handicrafts classes plus has a children's library, a paediatric clinic, a maternity clinic, and a medical clinic. They run play sessions for kids with drama and art therapy to help them move on from the tsunami as many of them lost siblings and best friends as well as parents, grandparents and other family members. They also run bigger projects to encourage participation in village life such as Seenigama Sports:-
§ a project run by the Foundation with funding from Laureus Sport for Good Foundation
§ 8 sports are played within this project which involves over 1500 young people locally, offering them hope and rebuilding their confidence
§ each month 3 sports competitions are organised for 7 of the local villages and schools in the Seeenigama area
§ last week cricketers Steve Waugh and Kapil Dev visited Seenigama to officially launch Seenigama Sports
§ the project was pioneered by Ian Botham who will be visiting again in the new year
These are just some of the highlights of the Foundation of Goodness's work. For further information please check out the website:
www.unconditionalcompassion.com.
Tsunami: One Year On
Post Tsunami Sri Lanka - article
The Vibrant Village of Seenigama and the Foundation of Goodness
It’s almost a year on since last year’s devastating tsunami and questions continue to be asked. If you have ever wondered what happened to the money you donated after the tsunami, a large majority of Sri Lankans are wondering the same thing. Many of the villages devastated by last December’s disaster are still waiting to be noticed by the big NGOs, and do not believe there will ever be any financial aid from their government. So much is being done here but there is still so much to be done, and stories of villages not yet reached can be disturbing. Many villagers are still living in camps with no temporary, let alone permanent housing. This is all too evident once you leave behind you the hustle and bustle of Colombo. Travelling south down the main Galle Road you pass from city suburbs to rural landscapes - the beautiful rivers and beaches of the South West coast, but also through the tsunami zone.
Bits of boats on beaches, abandoned collapsed houses, alleys of temporary wooden housing, vats of drinking water, and building work everywhere. You can only wonder at how the Sri Lankan people are dealing with the aftermath of the devastations last December.
However, something positive can be seen when you come across the village of Seenigama, 96km south of Colombo - here you realise there is tremendous hope. As you drive down the small road leading to Seenigama’s temple you see the permanent new houses either side of the road, permanent houses, painted different colours revealing the vibrancy of a village being re-built. At the core of the village is a locally set up organisation called the Foundation of Goodness, literally founded on the goodness of human kindness and that is what has helped this village and its surrounding area to rebuild both physically and spiritually.
Foundation of Goodness
Set up six years ago the Foundation of Goodness is a small charitable organisation aiming to assist the less fortunate people of Seenigama. Its commitment was, and is, to improve the lives of people in desperate circumstances and empower the rural community by enhancing its facilities. The organisation was based in the holiday bungalow of its founder – Kushil Gunasekera, with 3 permanent members of staff employed from the village to run its ‘Lahiru Community Centre’. The Centre has always been financed through individual, group and corporate donations – over 15 million Rupees spent on the village before the tsunami, with administration costs paid for by Kushil. In a way it is no surprise that the Foundation has gone from strength to strength since last Boxing Day. Kushil’s bungalow and the Lahiru Centre, along with so many houses and livelihoods in Seenigama, were totally devastated by the tsunami. The waves travelled in land as far as 2 km causing chaos in their wake. But rather than letting this be a setback, the positive action by the Foundation has been overwhelming. Kushil felt unable to keep his holiday bungalow and donated it to the village, what remains of the bungalow has become a Relief Centre Secretariat and will eventually be a Centre of Excellence for the village, particularly aimed at the young people living here. The secretariat has become a core hub of the village employing approximately 20 members of staff locally.
Although the Centre of Excellence will take time to build physically that has not stopped activities getting underway. Classes and activities that were run before the tsunami continue – English classes, computer classes, donations of needy school items for kids, upgrades of village dwellings, modernisation of schools, community welfare programmes, self-employment opportunities, sports activities, health care and nutrition awareness raising, and voluntary opportunities for local young people. On top of that the Centre is continually growing – there is a paediatric clinic, maternity clinic, children’s library, water purification plant, handicrafts centre and each day more ideas are being realised.
It takes a special person to give up their house to the local people, and Kushil is very special to all the people in Seenigama and an incredible role model to anyone really wanting to help. His complete belief in humanity and unconditional compassion is reflected throughout the Foundation and all those he and it touches. The Foundation’s immediate response to the tsunami was astonishing – from setting up a tsunami camp, to distributing emergency food packs, to purchasing land for new houses, to starting new industries for the villagers, helping them to recover from the tsunami. The Foundation acted quickly to distribute aid sent, and has continued to put to use the overwhelming amount of financial donations from around the world to remarkable affect.
New Livelihoods
To add to the culture of learning and rebuilding there is also a lot of encouragement for the villagers to get involved in new enterprises. This is not only to help them rebuild their livelihoods but also to offer them a legitimate alternative to the dangerous and now illegal coral mining practices of the past, which is how 90% of the villagers used to earn their keep. The first industry to be set up was a cement block factory - immediately after the tsunami Kushil and the Foundation helped to train local villagers to make cement blocks for rebuilding houses. Once trained they were able to buy equipment with the money they earned and they now make approximately 2,500 bricks a day. Several villagers own one machine, working as a co-operative, and they earn new livelihoods from it. The village as a result has moved quickly to rebuild. Other industries set up include a brush handle factory manufacturing handles using rubber timber, and a coir yarn business where fibre is spun into rope and sold to make mats. These three new industries employ over 50 men and women locally. The Foundation has also set up a handicrafts centre where the local men and women can display and sell their crafts such as wood carvings, woven baskets, batiks, and hand painted cards. There are many more ideas in the pipeline including a garment factory, all set up to give the villagers something they can take on, have ownership of and earn money from.
Every day villagers come to the Foundation with different requests – sports kits for kids, financial aid for 3-wheelers or fishing boats, sponsorship for their child’s education, help with medical costs, to name a few. All requests are listed and put up on the Foundation’s website: www.unconditionalcompassion.com. Each day you see these requests becoming reality.
Projects here are inspiring, motivating and most importantly, ongoing. Despite the poverty and the added devastations of the tsunami, the village is vibrant and the people here are rebuilding their future. Kushil’s dream is that this becomes a model for other villages to follow and has already extended the Foundation’s help to the villages surrounding Seenigama. What is being achieved here is incredible and if villages across Sri Lanka can even begin to rebuild on similar levels then hope will have spread a little further.
Volunteering and Donating
There are many volunteers who come and go from the Foundation each contributing in their own unique way, and it is through individuals and their compassion that this Foundation has always functioned. If you are interested in working as a volunteer you need to be flexible and creative, coming up with your own ideas of how to help the people. Don’t expect to have everything done for you – but they will help you in every way they can in looking for accommodation, supporting your ideas and making them happen. Every little bit helps and you will be wholeheartedly welcomed, which in itself is quite humbling.
Donations are also key to rebuilding the village – this way you can see directly where your money is being donated. The website lists the villagers’ requests which your money will go towards, or you can sponsor a child to help with their education - for as little as 11 pounds a month you can make a huge difference. There’s an easy form which enables you to donate online, avoiding any bank transfers or hidden fees – just click the ‘Donate Now’ button on the home page.
Go to the website, see what they are doing, and help in any way you can:
www.unconditionalcompassion.com.
Written by Faye Ruck-Nightingale who was a volunteer at the Foundation of Goodness from August to December this year working on a variety of projects.
Seenigama, Sports and the Foundation of Goodness
Like so many others I was drawn to Seenigama following the terrible tsunami disaster on 26 December 2004. By then I had already booked myself a ticket to travel around the world for 8 months taking a career break from my job in
On arrival in Seenigama you are automatically aware that it is an exceptional place and I was lucky enough to spend three unforgettable months volunteering there. When I arrived at the Foundation I felt a warmth I’ve not come across before. I was struck by the fact that these people had been through horrors I couldn’t begin to imagine yet they smiled, they laughed, they had an incredible harmony and an aura of hope. This was a sense of community that my home in the
As a volunteer you are really welcomed into the community, and your time is totally appreciated whether it’s for a couple of weeks or a few months. However, as Nick mentioned, you can't expect things to be handed to you on a plate and it can take a couple of weeks to work out how you are going to fit in and be useful. My roles were varied at first and one thing I was to learn is that no day is ever the same in
In Colombo I helped Kushil with the multitude of thank you letters that are sent out to our donors, although not the most exciting of tasks this was actually really interesting - until then I hadn’t realised just how much we were getting from donors or how. There were some incredibly humbling stories about how people donated – Duncan and Jody from the UK who asked people to donate rather than give them engagement presents; David in Australia who has found every which way to fund raise on a continuing basis; school kids in London who raised money through a sponsored spelling test; individuals and organisations from all over the world who had given as much as they could in order to help those worse off than themselves. As well as having contact with donors I enjoyed writing the website cover story every week. Though no IT expert I do enjoy writing and it was wonderful to be able to find new stories each week to put on the website, there were many to choose from and it was often a tough task to prioritise the main story each week, though I sometimes cheated and wrote two in one. Working in the
Sports
Just after I arrived at the Foundation in August we had been awarded funding from Laureus Sport for Good Foundation to run a year-long sports project within Seenigama and 6 of its surrounding villages. This was to be the main project for me whilst I was in the village working with 2 incredibly talented and dedicated guys from Seenigama – Asanka and Thushara, both wonderful people and excellent sportsmen. Every week I took the bus from
I had no idea how good these guys were at sports until I started this project. Sitting in our new ‘sports office’ (the old medicine store at the Foundation) I’d watch them all play volleyball out of the window while I worked away on my laptop. There are some incredibly talented players in Seenigama and the surrounding villages, and let’s not forget the girls – their volleyball teams played some very competitive and outstanding matches. There’s also some amazing talent on the cricket pitch and the athletics field, plus excellent swimmers, and some up and coming sports men and women in badminton and netball.
With all this local talent and enthusiasm for sport, Asanka, Thushara and I knew that we had to provide a great sports programme for the year to build on the current talent and to entice new players into the games. To plan the project we had to look at the budget first - factoring in costs of uniforms, equipment, pitch upgrades, hire, referee costs, coach costs, and numbers of participants for each sport. Asanka and Thushara went to all the local schools and village sports clubs to gather info on players and what sports people were interested in playing. We narrowed it down to an initial 8 sports – volleyball, beach volleyball, softball cricket, athletics, sea and pool swimming, badminton and netball. Once we had discussed all the details I got to work putting it into a year plan to work from and got to grips with how our budget would spread over the year. The boys got to work by spreading the word amongst the local village sports clubs and schools and gathering info on teams, convenient days to play competitions, etc.. ‘Seenigama Sports’ was up and running by mid-September and started off with volleyball competitions which seemed to happen on an almost daily basis to fit in all the teams (and still do!). The following month we had more competitions – in addition to volleyball, a 5 mile x-country race and a 100m sea-swimming race. ….and the sports continue every month with new sports such as badminton, softball cricket and beach volleyball being played on a regular basis.
You may be wondering how this project has helped a tsunami affected village in a disadvantaged rural community? The project had an impact that even I couldn’t believe – the young people in the villages from all ages were motivated and invigorated by participating in the various sports. Taking part helped to build their confidence and improve their team building skills and gave them more of an opportunity to meet up with their friends. Not only has Seenigama Sports had a huge impact on the kids it has also benefited the communities as a whole getting people actively participating in their community again and interacting with folk from other villages. One volleyball match we held at night had 2 villages supporting their teams, with fathers, mothers, grandparents, babies, brothers and sisters all cheering on their players – 2 rows deep around the pitch. It was an electric atmosphere and an event I was very proud to be part of.
The proof in the pudding, or the ball in the back of the net, came when I was able to see the reaction of our funders as they visited the project in early December. Laureus Sport for Good Foundation brought 2 of their Academy Members – the famous cricketers Steve Waugh and Kapil Dev – for a visit with 2-day packed itinerary to see Seenigama Sports in action and how it was impacting the villages. Sadly our main ambassador from Laureus – Ian Botham – couldn’t make it for personal reasons but we were assured he was keen to return in the new year. I came back from the
If you want to volunteer be prepared for hard work, long hours, long weeks, unpredictability and working within the frustrations of “
FOG volunteer August – November 2005
