SINGHAPURA A VILLAGE IN NEED! Part 2.

If you have been reading prt.1 about Singhapura you know what we found there when we 1st came on the invitation of the villagers send to us by our friend Kapila who worked there for the Red Cross.

Maybe you understand then that it was difficult to decide where to start. We made requests to a chapter of the Rotary in Colombo true our friend Mrs. Joy Markham Butler, but up till now there is no result yet. Also Alexander tried to get some help from the German Red Cross, but also from them there is no result yet.

The 29th of June a small group of volunteer workers arrived from the Netherlands: Saman Vinke and his 4 friends of the SrilanCare Foundation there. They are a wonderful kind of volunteers; every year when they come to do volunteer work they are not only working very hard, they also collect the funds to do some programs in Sri Lanka!

We might wish that there where more young people who take an example of this!!!!

Before they came Saman phoned me and asked if I knew any program they could do while they where here this time. Well, we have so many people and groups in need that we can choose! This time they wanted to do some thing in the Eastern part of the country, and not again in the coastal arrear where they have been doing a lot of great things in the past few years. The recently liberated part of the East and the arrear around Wellawaya where a no no, because of the security situation there, (Even tough we would like to have some urgently needed programs done there). So we offered them the program to renovate the Mother and Child Healthcare Centre in Singhapura.

We where very happy when they went there and told us that they would run the program there, and renovate the centre!!!
Our past experience with them assured us that it would be done perfectly, and in a durable fashion. They contacted Kapila who functioned as our coordinator there and started the work.
To keep it cheap they also worked as their own contractor!!!!!
After 15 days we where invited to come for the re-opening of the health centre and 3 days later we where astonished with the result!
In 18 days they worked out a small miracle, and proved that our trust in them was right! The ruined building had changed in a newly looking Health Centre, the people of the village where enormously happy, and so are we!!! The villagers had worked as free labourers
and they hired only some professionals which where needed. They had worked themselves very hard and because of this combination the costs where far below the estimate! When we arrived there we did not even recognized the place!!!

At the opening Bhante made the doctor promise not only to come and work there regularly, but also to keep an eye on the maintenance of the building from now on. Further more he stressed that the village population should take care of their responsibility and not let things go to waste again. For a detailed photo report we are referring to the picasa picture side there you will find the “before and after” pictures of the care centre.

We hope to find others to sponsor also the rest of the needs of the Singhapura village program, and maybe even people like Saman and his friends of the SrilanCare Foundation who would gather funds and come and run a program for our Blue Lotus Buddhist Fellowship.
In the mean time we would like to express our gratitude to the wonderful youngsters who did this one, Saman and his friends, and to their donators! Thank you! You gained great Merit!
Sadhu, Sadhu, Sa !!!!!