All_About

Village 2 Village is a one-day music festival taking place on April 23rd at Prescote Manor, Cropredy.

The committee expects to raise around £10,000, all of which is to be used to help rebuild lives in the Tengalle region of southern Sri Lanka – one of the areas hardest hit by December’s tsunami.

While DEC has closed its appeal, because immediate needs have been met, tens of thousands of people are still living in tents without the means of earning a living.

We aim to repair houses where possible, repair fishing boats and fund job creation such as weaving or carpentry workshops.
Funds are to be targeted at one particular village, the idea being to “twin” with Cropredy in what we hope will become a long-term relationship. A village called Mawella, near Tengalle, has been provisionally selected.

Aid work for Village 2 Village is to be carried out by the Tengalle Relief Fund, one of several charities which make up the Adopt Sri Lanka initiative. This was founded by foreign residents in Sri Lanka and was recently featured in a Channel 5 documentary. It has registered charity status in Australia, via the PLC Sydney Overseas Aid Fund Trust, but unfortunately does not in the UK. Please see the adoptsrilanka.com website for more information.

Rebuilding of many houses is on hold at the moment as the government has declared its intention of resiting coastal communities 300m inland. Therefore, while houses beyond this distance can be rebuilt, those closer to the sea cannot, although this situation may change. The focus at present is on restoring peoples’ livelihoods. Projects in Mawella will follow the pattern of those being carried out by the Tengalle Relief Fund at other locations along the coast. These include:

- The general clean-up of villages to try and restore a sense of order and erase as much as possible, the signs of the disaster. Houses beyond the 300m limit are being rebuilt. The fund pays a daily rate of US$3 per day plus lunch and tea (standard day-labour salary) to the workers who range in age between 16 and 60. A large proportion of these men are fishermen who are unable to return to the sea due to damaged boats and equipment. Women are employed to cook and prepare tea for the men. Each house plot costs an average of £15 to clear.

- Job creation projects. A factory/workshop producing construction materials, and a basic carpentry workshop producing door frames and windows are being set up. The idea is to create jobs for those displaced and enable them to learn a skill, whilst stocking up construction materials for the impending construction boom. The materials produced will either be donated or sold at cost or small profit and the proceeds re-invested into another longer term project - perhaps a language school for unemployed youths to improve their employment opportunities.

- Rebuilding and equipping of an orphanage in Tengalle and the main Tengalle district hospital.