Star Action Sri Lanka

Again Jenny reports: Our two weeks in Sri Lanka have been very fruitful. We checked up on all our existing projects (see updated SRI LANKA PROJECTS page ….) and made plans for new ones, including helping another very poor school in the North East civil war battered area of the island. It was moving to see children leaving one of the poor schools we had previously helped, carrying their ‘Star Action school bags’. Even more touching was later seeing one of the bags hanging up with a few old clothes in the most broken down shack we have seen, even in this very poor area. Sitting outside the shack was an elderly grandmother nursing four small children. This is the area where we hope to provide irrigation for the crops of 35 subsistence farmers, so they can grow crops all year round instead of in the rainy season only.

Another new project which particularly appeals to me is the formation of a women’s co-operative which will give aid to really poor and needy families in their local area. I also like the fact that our ‘small business interest-free loans’ encourage individual enterprise, and the repaid loan is ‘recycled’ to help more people. You will see on the PROJECTS page, three possible new business projects awaiting individual sponsorship.