Now the government has estimated 9000 children are dead and over 3000 children have become orphans. This does not include children in the LTTE area. These figures are still increasing because hundreds of people washed out to sea have not yet been accounted. We are trying our best to assist the people in our immediate surrounding. Don Bosco community in the South is giving shelter to 200 families who have completely lost their homes. Along the Western cost particularly in Negombo the Don Bosco Community is sheltering 350 families who are Catholic fisherman. There is another Don Bosco community close to Colombo offering assistance to another 300 families by providing food and health care. These days the Salesians are offering food, clothing and health care to all these people. There are many other Centres in the area but the people in the Salesian Centres are very well looked after.
What we are planning now is to give long term assistance, that is providing houses for those who have lost their houses and education of the children orphaned by this natural disaster. These days everyone is offering everything to the victims. But we know after a week when the emotions run low, there won’t be any help.
We know lots of people are offering immediate needs with food and clothing. But we need to plan something on a long-term basis, such as building houses, looking after orphan children. The national Child Protection Authority has asked us to take the children who are orphaned.
We Salesians are working toward shelter for at least 12% of these children who are orphaned by the Tsunami in the Western and Southern Region and also 10% from the Tamil Speaking area of North and East.
We are also working towards building at least 350 houses for the homeless and resettling them in life.
In Negombo we have already begun making soil blocks to make 350,000 bricks, to build houses in our immediate surrounding. Our main problem is looking for land, We cannot put them back on the beach. The land little away from sea is very costly. In other places where people are affected they more or less get food and clothing.
The other major problem we are facing in Sri Lanka is clearing the debris and transporting water. Clear water is available in the Country, the problem is the transportation. We are thinking of acquiring necessary equipment to supply water and to build and to resettle people.
As we Salesians have this long term dream in our minds to assist this unfortunate people, may I once again appeal to you to help us in this regard to make this beautiful dream come true to bring up the lives of the people back to normal.
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'austraLasia' is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia-Pacific. It functions also as an agency for ANS, based in Rome. Try also www.bosconet.aust.com and Lexisdb
