ASIA/SRI LANKA - Schools open and rebuilding projects completed tsunami victims resume life as usual

Colombo (Fides Service) - With great difficulty and after overcoming many obstacles, life is returning to normal for villagers in areas of Sri Lanka affected by last year’s 26 December tsunami tragedy. With new homes and schools, fishing nets and boats fishing families are at last able to pick up the threads of life. This is thanks to help from many organisations including Catholic agencies such as Volontariato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo (Vis), Italian NGO connected with the Salesian Fathers, according to the Società Italiana Monitoraggio engaged by the national Civil Protection Unit to monitor projects launched by Italian NGOs.
In the northern Sri Lankan town of Trincomlee, 150 children aged 3 to 5 have a new kindergarten built with funds from the Don Bosco Network and Vis operators.
The first new kindergarten was opened at the end of the Summer in the presence of about 100 families, the parish priest, teachers and local authorities. The event was a demonstration of the will of the people to return to normality made of small daily actions. This kindergarten is special because the teachers are of different religions to ensure the little inmates are followed according to their family beliefs and customs whether Buddhist, Christian, Hindu or Muslim.
Other projects concern building of new homes, repairing fishing boats, building three new centres for children in Kandy, Negombo and Dulgalpitya.
In Indonesia Italian projects focus on promoting small business and trades. Don Bosco Network collected over 5 million Euro to support projects in tsunami affected areas.
(Agenzia Fides 16/09/2005 Righe: 26 Parole: 268)