ABDF

As I said in my last letter, I love the month of August. Projects really move fast, since our local partners are all on vacation from work. The last ten days have continued too prove this.

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Mary Bernadad Sithamparappilai first met Project Director Bennett Hinkley a few months after the tsunami back in 2005, before ABDF was formed. At the time he was working with a group of independent volunteers engaged in projects to help deal with the tsunami crisis. Mary told her story, which has since been verified:

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009 While I can’t believe that it’s been almost two weeks since I last wrote. My how the time goes. I’m happy to tell you about some great progress on our projects. August is a good time for our projects. Many of our local partners (Prabha for water tanks, Balan for computer labs, etc.) are teachers and in August school is out for the month. That frees up their time and they can spend more time with masons, electricians and so forth. And this is why June is slow; they are prepping their classes for end-of-year exams, grading the papers, etc. I’m sure all my teacher friends can totally relate. So… where to begin? How about water tanks? (more...)

• Project Completed! (See below)
• Location: Zahira IDP Camp, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
• Recipients:124 war-displaced families
• Objective:Give refugees a day of fun!
• Final cost:$45 US

Zahira is a small IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp of 124 families on the outskirts of Batticaloa. The people were displaced from their village near Sampur, near Trincomalee to the north, two years ago at the beginning of the final phase of the civil war. Traditionally farmers, they have been living in this small camp awaiting resettlement. Unfortunately, the government security forces declared their village and farms a High Security Zone, meaning that they will not be allowed to move back to their homes. The tight-knit group has been assigned land to the north of Batti, and is scheduled to be relocated next month, finally.

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ABDF.org was approached by an Australian NGO, NTA East Indonesia Aid, to meet and share best practices. Melton Cartes, ABDF’s Development Director and I had a fascinating conversation with Dr. Colin Barlow and his wife about the founding and maturation of NTA during a recent visit to San Francisco.

Among items discussed was the concept of building trans national partnerships while retaining the culture of a small, independent NGO. ABDF highly values the concept of tangible, transparent projects and the opportunity to scale impact with a partner can both complement and challenge this culture. You can learn more about NTA at www.nta.org.au. I’ll continue posting on this topic as it develops.