04 October 2008

Tsunami relief

In the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sumatra the third strongest recorded earthquake in history triggered Tsunamis in the entire region on the 26th December 2004. Based on estimations in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and in another 8 countries up to 230,000 humans lost their lives and up to 1,700,000 have been made homeless in the course of this natural disaster.In Sri Lanka especially the east and the south of the island have been effected. Besides substantial damages caused to the infrastructure of the country the disaster did cost there up to 38,000 humans their lives and up to 500,000 have been made homeless. Many of the survivors lost their entire belongings as well as their basis of existence.As the news of the devastating effects of the Tsunami disaster reached us, we immediately started the relief work. Already on the 28th December Ven. Dr. Bodagama Chandima traveled with a few helpers to Sri Lanka and so we have been able to instantly put 5 million rupees immediate aid at disposal.Our team toured across the affected regions afterwards and distributed auxiliary goods like medicine, food, clothing and kitchen utensils. Further relief actions have been performed by us in the beginning of 2005.In the further order of our work the reconstruction of the affected regions moved in the foreground and so we made the decision to concentrate our efforts onto the construction of free houses for the displaced victims. We call our new project the Samadhi housing project.Our organisation is still committed to the Tsunami victims, for many persons affected still wait for adequate help!