We received this report from Dr. M. B. Kottegoda, of SUCCESS, the Sri Lankan NGO we have partnered with to distribute the first shipment of relief goods sent by CAUS:

Dear Gihan,

The programme we conducted during last weekend was a huge success; Aunty Ramya organised the entire event. We left Kurunegala on Saturday morning at 5:30am and reached Galle at 1:00pm. There we visited a camp for displaced people near the cement factory. The displaced were housed in tents donated by an organisation from Italy. It was extremely hot inside the tents. These people had received a lot of food and clothing so we did a health clinic and conducted games and gave gifts to the children. Then we visited an area at Polhena beach in Matara where there were many displaced people for whom a few houses had been built by the group from Kurunegala. We distributed a large quantity of donations from CAUS among the people there. They were all happy with the stuff they received. Later on Saturday we reached Hambantota at 7.30pm and stayed at the OASIS hotel. This is a large hotel which is near the beach but was unaffected by the Tsunami. The owners of the Hotel provided free accomodation and meals for our team and gave us all facilities. I would recommend this hotel to any of your members who decide to visit Sri Lanka to see the Tsunami damage and do any relief work in the south.

The main programme was the Health camp and distribution of donations from CAUS to the displaced people at KIRINDA, held on Sunday morning and afternoon 20th March. We conducted this at the Muslim school there. Games for the children were also held. We found a large crowd had gathered there, as announcements had been made by loudspeakers about our visit. All items of clothing donated by CAUS were accepted by the people; nothing was rejected. We distributed the milk food, baby formula and other items too. All along the coastline from Moratuwa to Kirinda we saw the massive destruction caused by the Tsunami and Hambantota had been the worst affected, after Ampara. There were hundreds of camps, with people living in tents of various sizes and shapes. Their main concern at present is the lack of proper housing. Various organisations have built temporary and permanent houses but the majority are still without homes. We did not hear of any houses which have been completed by the Govt so far. Since ours is a small organisation with limited resources we are not able to do anything by ourselves to ease this problem. I have had requests from other groups in USA to assist them for Tsunami relief work but had to decline as we do not have the capacity to undertake responsibility for larger projects of this nature.

I will be sending you the photographs of the CAUS - SUCCESS WAYAMBA project as soon as possible.

The final shipment - a 20'x8'x8' container-load of  dry rations, infants' milk, feeding bottles and other baby items, toys, school supplies and clothing, was packed and shipped out on the 27th January. The entire cost of shipping this container was by courtesy of our friend, Mr. Sidney Sridhar of Seabulk Systems Inc. Thank you Sidney. [See picture at right of our members loading the container].

Thank you to everyone who donated relief supplies, helped sort, store, pack and load stuff; for all three shipments that we shipped to Sri Lanka during the month of January, 

Recognizing that clean water is essential to resettling the displaced people in the disaster area, CAUS forwarded a cheque to the Lanka Academic Network, in support of the LAcNet well-cleaning project currently in progress in the South and the East. [Read details about the LAcNet well-cleaning project here ].

Within the first two weeks of the disaster, our focus has been on providing whatever emergency help we can. We also took time out to remember the victims.

Previous updates

What we have done so far :

- Children's direct phone campaign : Our children volunteered to phone the public and solicit donations to the Sri Lanka Disaster Relief Fund . We have received a number of donations in to the Fund as a result of this. Thank you to all the children who gave their time.