Village Water Pumps for Kayankerny

Two ladies, Selvarani and Thangalashami, both with four young children and husbands on very low labouring wages, have requested Star Actions’s help to buy water pumps to enable them to irrigate their small vegetable and fruit growing plots.  We have received sponsorship already for Selvarani.

Emergency Relief for War Widow

Please see wonderful news in our October update!

Before we arrived on the East Coast, Lal had told us that he had a very serious situation to show us.  Just outside his village of Kayankerny, a widow was living—‘camping’ would be a better way to describe it—in the most appalling circumstances.  The photo shows her ‘home’.  Rubble for a floor, a broken tarpaulin for a covering—no proper shelter at all.  Although there had recently been an unseasonably dry period, it was monsoon time.  We could not imagine what the conditions would be like then.  A small pathetic pile of school books and little school shoes would immediately be soaked as soon as the rain came.

Sri Lanka: East Coast Community Project

COMMUNITY EDUCATION PROJECT

Our 2 teachers, Sneeha and Kowsika with friend

We have often recently heard our politicians projecting the future prospects of the United Kingdom in the term ‘Education, Education, Education’.  However, in India and Sri Lanka this has been understood by every family for some time.  Those who can go to school are given every assistance to do well by Mum and Dad, and those who cannot, and who have to contribute to the family income, crave an opportunity to attend and learn.

Fruit Farm Community Project

Snakegoat Vegetable

Eastern Sri Lanka was hit hard by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami and 30,000 lives were lost, homes and businesses destroyed and agriculture put back several years.

Our East Coast agent, Lal, proposed an experimental farm to grow new crops of fruit and vegetables that could be copied by families on their own small pieces of land.  This idea was backed by Star Action last year and Lal has put £150 of his own money into it (probably 25% of his annual income).

Sri Lanka: West Coast Project

BUILD-A-TOILET’ SCHEME

The Toilet challenges of British and European peoples are rarely mentioned in popular history books.  70 to 80 years ago many homes had no bathroom or toilet inside the house and 150 years ago most used a bucket to wash in and somebody else’s garden to complete their ablutions.

The Sri Lankan and Indian people love to be clean and go to great lengths to bath and wash their clothes daily.  Imagine how distressing it is to have to live in a home with no bathroom and to have no alternative but to use the roadside or the beach every day as a lavatory.

Report on orphanage and old people’s home in India

There is never enough time for a visit like this to my ‘other’ family and we packed as much in as we could during the ten days in May. It was my first chance to see the new house that we began to rent over a year ago, which is the best we have had to date and one which makes Richard and Sasees’s job a little easier.