 |
- Hetty Bluck, who runs Action Lanka with her English husband Peter has now joined the SwimLanka team. Hetty, or Teruni as she is known by Sri Lankans, was like Julian a Sri Lankan national swimmer. She is a great asset and has immediately started taking some of the workload off the original three.
- A fact finding mission, consisting of Tony, Petronella, Hetty and Peter, went to Trincomalee on the North East coast as Trincomalee was to be the next district that SwimLanka was to be operating in. They returned on Sunday night, late but thrilled with the thought that Trincomalee might possibly be on line before the end of the month.
- Athula Senanayake, a senior trustee, had his birthday - not as significant as his next one!
- Good news from Margaret Read, one of the Rebuilding Sri Lanka trustees, who confirmed that they would fund Kalutara District of the SwimLanka project. Thanks to all the lovely people of Rebuilding Sri Lanka who have worked so hard in UK to raise money for their projects.
- The first meeting of the new SwimLanka Team
- Going their different paths, Petronella went to Trincomalee for a morning meeting of the local Psycho-social group while Julian and Tony in Colombo met the trustees of Suntel Relief Trust Fund, http://www2.wow.lk/srtf/
- Petronella carried on meeting people/organisations, including the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) and Reverend Terrence of the Methodist Church
- Meanwhile Tony, Ravin & Daya went down South to Galle and Tangalle to check up on the pools there, hoping to see the Saturday classes in action.
- The opening of the pools at Kategoda, Galle was attended by Julian and Petronella. Kategoda, which is densely populated and is just South of Galle, suffered badly in the Tsunami. There were so many children wanting to take part in the SwimLanka programme that it was decided to place 2 pools there.
- Audrey Dickinson has joined SwimLanka as a volunteer to help with the marketing and merchandising
- Visit to Trincomalee with John Barlotti who is part of the No Strings charity, www.nostrings.org.uk. He, like us, was on an exploratory/planning visit as No Strings hope to set their operations in Sri Lanka. The aim of the visit for us was to find coaches for this new district and to bring them back to Colombo for training.
- The Sunshine Festival in Trincomalee
- Meeting with Rev Terrence, who has been assisting in finding Tamil coaches. Back to Colombo with 5 boys from Trincomalee for swimming training.
|
|
|
