Star Action Families

A Star Action Family

In our last Newsletter we wrote about three individual families in our care in Sri Lanka, including our ‘triplets family’ and the family caring for our Little Temple.  Although Maria, our ‘Temple guardian’ with her daughter Mabel and granddaughter Wasana) has now lost her elderly husband last September, and then sadly suffered a stroke herself, she is recovering well and has nearly regained the use of her left side, learning to walk again with a stick.  All our families are very appreciative of Star Action’s care and support.

The triplet family are now self-supporting and all five children doing well—the two older girls being particularly clever at school.

Fisherman at Work

Rajan, our Star Action fisherman has had a good season and been able to purchase new nets himself.  When we visited we were delighted to find his wife Mary Romilla completely recovered from her crippling headaches (Star Action helped fund her medical treatment), and that the three children are all doing well at school.

Sudharsini and her daughter Neelakshan

OUR SEWING MACHINE LADIES

We have two excellent hardworking ‘sewing machine ladies’ in Kalpitya (North West Sri Lanka).  Now, through our further sponsorship for another sewing machine, we are offering this to a young mother on the East Coast.  She lives near Lal and is highly recommended by him as very conscientious and hardworking.  Twenty-two year old Sudharsini  has a six year old daughter.  (Father is a lorry driver on a very low wage.)  The sewing machine will give Sudharsini  the opportunity to begin a small business in this impoverished area, and offer an easily accessible range of baby, children and adult clothes to the five hundred plus very poor families living around her.

OUR STAR ACTION AGENTS

IN SRI LANKA
Last March (2011) Rohan, who has helped us for a number of years now, married his long time fiancée, Hassanthi.  He has now moved to another part of Sri Lanka, living with his in-laws, and is unable to continue helping Star Action at the present time, due to his increased family and working responsibilities.  We are really grateful to him for all the support he has given us.

FOR WHOLE ISLAND
SHAN FERNANDO—son of Jogy (see later)—is now helping us with all our Sri Lankan projects.  He has excellent English and communication skills.

WEST COAST
His father, JOGY (Joachim) FERNANDO—former owner of the Temple Flower Guest House, which we have used as our base for Star Action group visits—has offered to help with Shan to  particularly develop our West Coast projects

EAST COAST
COLUMBAGE JAGATH (LAL) now looks after all our East Coast projects (in close communication with Shan).  This whole area suffered the double blow of great damage from the Tsunami and the ravages of thirty years of civil war.  Lal is a truly remarkable man.  He shared with us this time (we did not know this previously) that he had been the owner of a hugely successful diving business, employing 19 divers.  When these divers were taken hostage by the rebel (Tamil Tiger) army, he surrendered all his material possessions and diving equipment in return for their lives.  Since then he has lived with his wife and children in a small post-tsunami 2 room home (absolute minimum furniture) and his whole focus has been on helping the doubly traumatised people around him.  He is responsible for helping us develop the community projects in his area.