We Need Your Help!
When elephants devastated The Abode in 2008 we rebuilt it and set up a system whereby local people stood watch over the paddy fields to give early warning of elephants aproaching. Elephant Attacks With a donated mobile phone and a pay as you go card we were able to put them in instant communcation with others who could support them in an emergency.
We have now been asked to provide other communities with mobile phones. Have you any you can donate? They need to be unlocked and have their chargers intact….. Please contact Sue urgently at: sue@theabodetrust.com.
The Abode Trust has been able to provide the funds to build a new house for one couple displaced by elephants, the problem remains for the other families. One of whom is an elderly widow who has no family to turn to. She has been living since June 2008 in little more than a corrugated iron shelter in the valley bottom in what are extreme conditions even by village standards.
We desperately need your financial help to re-house her. Pleae contribute and contact us. Sue@theabodetrust.com
Supporting people with sensory impairments
Since 2007 we have been taking second hand glasses to people in remote villages in Sri Lanka. Many there have poor eye sight and are unable to read newsprint or food labels and to have the sharp focus that spectacles bring is something so easy to arrange yet makes such a difference to the quality of people’s lives.
Friends, colleagues, families and local church groups have donated glases they no longer use and so far we must have distributed hundreds to local people. In August 2009 we gave out sixty pairs to those we met on our travels and to Buddhist monks for sharing with local communities. In April 2010 alone we distributed over 150 pairs of glasses. So if you have any glasses you don’t use any more, please send them to us.
We have also started to supply second hand digital hearing aids to those in remote communities. This photo shows the old fashioned type of hearing aid most people have to cope with – I last saw one of these being used in the UK by my great grandfather when I was a child. We have now fixed this man up with digital aids, thanks to you people who have donated in the UK.
Very old hearing aids still in use in Sri Lanka
If you have any digital hearing aids you no longer use or would like to contribute towards the cost of buying some for people in Sri Lanka, please contact us.
We are also supporting a number of other projects across Sri Lanka and need your help. For example:
Toilets for a school in the South East
The Monaragalu Pallowalu Maha Vidiyalayu school in Gouindupora, Siyambalandawe in the south east of the country works with 1,000 pupils aged 6 – 18 years with the help of 48 teachers. It is one of the remotest schools in the country and the children often leave home at 5am as they have to travel up to 12 kms to get there. Whilst the school does its best to offer a good education they are struggling for basic facilities and have access to only ONE toilet!
This means that 1,048 people use a single toilet in hot and humid conditions and there are no separate facilities for males and females.
See more information: appeals-schools
If you want to help, please contact us: Sue@theabodetrust.com
Paper, pens and books for a school
In September 2008, we visited a remote coastal village, Uthlmuni in Portugal Bay in the north west of Sri Lanka near to the disputed border. It involved a gut wrenching trip on a motorised fishing boat with a powerful outboard engine that sent us crashing through the waves and clinging to the sides to avoid being thrown out.
Once there we walked into an idyllic setting with a fairy cake pink Christian Church on the seashore. Tamil children rushed to greet us, their faces wide with grins, darting close enough to touch us then dashing away in mock fright. Because they had little English and our knowledge of Tamil was zero, communication was by signs and gestures but there is no doubting their glee at our arrival!
Being so remote, their school caters for 52 children of all ages with only two teachers and they struggle to manage without sufficient books, pens and materials. They teach Tamil and English as well as the basic subjects but with your help they could do so much more.
Most of the families who live in this community rely on fishing for their living and their lifestyle is basic, but clean and well organised. The parents we talked to, like parents the world over, simply want the best education they can get for their children but are very aware of the limited materials their teachers have.
So, have you any teaching materials, books, pens, paper you can send us which we can package up and freight to the villlage? Things like reading books – of all standards- paper maybe recycled? Pens, pencils or other materials you think they could use?
Contact: sue@theabodetrust.com
