Dear all,

Here follows a report on the trip to Sri Lanka in January.

First of all, thank you very much for your generous donations! In total, they amounted to a corresponding 1000 euro in cash and three full bags of medicines (pain killers, pills against diarrhea and antibiotics) as well as other medical supplies (band aid, compresses, sterile gloves, etc). About half of all this came from friends and colleagues in France and Switzerland and the other half from relatives, neighbors, an emergency clinic and two private doctors in Sweden. A special thank you goes to my sister Maria Edwardsson who encouraged all of her closest neighbors (about 20 people in the village Kiaby, Sweden where I grew up) to make donations, which they did. My local bank (Kristianstad Sparbank, Fjälkinge) also converted the Swedish half of the money free of charge (a 4 euro fee!).

I spent close to a month in Sri Lanka with my fiancée Maria Lucia, who works for AIESEC (the largest student-run organization in the world) training university students in a project sponsored by the HSBC bank but also runs projects such as the ones I will describe below, among other things. We traveled to many places, both affected and unaffected by the tsunami.

After some initial scouting, we located and visited the Galgoda Maha Viharaya refugee/relocation camp that is housed in a Buddhist temple in Panadura town, south of Colombo. Presently there are more than 500 people in this camp, that have lost just about everything, both property and family members. They have nothing to return to and thus have to remain in the camp for the time being. Naturally, I expected nothing less than misery here, but as often Asian people surprise you. Children were happily playing and we were greeted by nothing but smiling and friendly people. The director of the camp told us they were happy to receive all visitors and any kind of help. We asked him what they needed most, and he told us that they had received basic supplies by the Red Cross and the UN, but not any shoes for the children to walk to school in. The temple is located at the edge of town and the children have to walk along some pretty bad roads to get to school. We thought it would be a good idea to make this kind of contribution, so we decided to go ahead with buying the shoes.

It took a few days [for the director] to collect the shoe sizes (for children between ages 5-16, yes they begin pre-school at the age of 5!). Once we got the sizes we went to a suitable store (Bata) to buy the shoes. We negotiated with the manager to get a good price. The final bill was close to 900 euro with 12% discount for 199 pairs of shoes. The purchase took a good four hours to sort out the details (as well as removing some uncomfortable shoes). In the end we got 16 big boxes filled with shoes of high quality. The next day we went to the camp again. The AIESEC people had arranged for a day of activities for the children, with ball games, singing, etc, so the kids were very happy indeed. To my surprise I had to do an unprepared speech as the director all of a sudden handed me a microphone and asked me to explain to the people in the camp where this help came from. An AIESEC member translated into Singhalese and I think he did a much better job than I did with my speech since I got a big emotional lump in my throat as I tried to explain.. Maria Lucia took over after a while and explained about AIESEC and the projects they are launching. I got the honor of handing out the first few shoe boxes while pictures were taken. Later, the director gave us an official donations letter with acknowledgements to all of the donors (will be uploaded here later).

The remaining money, about 100 euro, was placed in a fund together with other donations that AIESEC has collected from around the world. It will be used for a sustainable project that Maria Lucia has started and is about helping women in the Galgoda Maha Viharaya camp to start micro businesses, such as small bakeries etc. More information (and how to make further donations!) can be found here.

The medicine was given to the official Slovakian rescue team on my first day in Sri Lanka, who took it to a hospital in the Galle province in the south. It came to good use there.

There are still some documents that I intend to put on this page, such as the receipt of the shoe purchase and the acknowledgement letter that was written by the camp director. Unfortunately illness and a broken computer has come in the way and has delayed this, but in a few days or weeks they will be scanned and placed here as well. I will also write an article (for at least a Swedish newspaper) to bring in some more funds.

Once again, thank you all very much. Your contribution has made a difference.

Pål Nilsson, February 2005

Happy children in Panadura refugee camp. Can you spot the Swedish t-shirt? (click on pictures to enlarge)

Buying the shoes at a Bata store in Colombo

In the affected areas. Infinite amounts of rubble, bricks and wood

A small mountain of almost 200 pairs of shoes at the refugee camp

Delivering the first few pairs of shoes

Camp director writing acknowledgement letter

Maria Lucia and children at the camp

AIESEC people entertaining the children