ABDF

Getting ready to play Cricket.

Peace Village, a tsunami resettlement in the village of Ollikulam, consists of 100 families displaced by the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. It is a mixed settlement of Muslims and Tamils mostly from the Kattankudy area, about 5 km away on the coast. It is also the site of our road building project.

The only supplies available for the new preschool

Education is free in Sri Lanka, but only begins with kindergarten. Studies show that children perform better in school if they have attended preschool, so there is a tremendous desire to provide preschooling to children. Until such time as the government decides to fund preschools, which is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future, preschools in Sri Lanka must be supported privately.

The residents of Peace Village want to provide their children with every chance of raising themselves out of poverty, and are especially interested in education. Towards this the village elders have set aside a large open-air room in their community center for use as a preschool.

This is the room set aside for the new preschool.

The only benches available for the new preschool.

However, the residents themselves are mostly farmers barely able to earn a sustenance income. The villagers have asked ABDF.org to supply their nascent preschool with furniture and materials; right now all they have are a few broken benches and a piece of chalkboard.

Peace Village, Ollikulam.

ABDF.org feels that this project, although only in its most preliminary of stages, is well worth looking into. We plan on working with the elders to decide what is needed to provide a functioning education experience for the children, and come up with a budget. We anticipate this will happen in early 2009, after the end of the monsoon rains.