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- Tuesday 1 March - Friday 4 March
- The first SwimLanka Confidence-with-Water Course continued with three swimming coaches, Sarath, Shiran and Tharanga. A second group started on the Tuesday, alternating daily with Monday’s group.
- Work continues on developing the SwimLanka Project further at Colombo HQ end. Our Colombo jobs have taken a bit of a back seat to say the least.
- The Swim Lanka Charitable Trust is finally registered as a legal entity in Sri Lanka. A great step forward.
- Another commitment before we were able to head South to Tangalle, the annual sea race at Mount Lavinia. The Rainbow Academy had a team for which Julian is the main coach.
- Julian and Petronella back in Tangalle to assess the previous week’s work. They watched, full of suspense, the children going into the pool.
- The icing on the cake was watching the first five children go into the ocean for the first time with their coach. Another great day! Hopefully the remaining children on the Confidence-with-Water Course will follow them into the sea within a few days.
- Tuesday 8 March - Friday 11 March
- The Tangalle Confidence-with-Water Courses continue
- The stage has been reached where our Colombo jobs have to fit in with SwimLanka, not SwimLanka with our Colombo jobs.
- Petronella organised with 2 international schools, the Elizabeth Moir School and the Overseas School Colombo, for a campaign to collect used swimsuits for the children. The Charity cannot afford to buy them new ones and very few of the children possess one of their own. By next weekend we should be getting some.
- Progress with the construction of the mould for the Fibreglass Training Pool goes well. When that has been completed there should be 2 new Training Pools ready for use every week!
- Back to Tangalle to check progress. We now have 63 children registered and quite a few ventured into the ocean during the course of the week. We have had 3 days of fairly high tides so Sarath decided to shorten the sessions and not unduly worry the children. The children seemed quite unaware and quite happy.
- Julian has left for Australia for 10 days to take part in a workshop in Melbourne for Disabled Swimming but very much in touch by SMS!
- Most of the day was spent getting quotes for water pumps. Petronella is now quite knowledgeable on the subject!
- The bank account was opened.
- Monday 14 - Saturday 19 March
- The Confidence-with-Water Courses continue at Tangalle
- Petronella took part in a radio discussion in Colombo covering the work of aid agencies in Sri Lanka post Tsunami. It was for Dutch Radio 1 current affairs program due to be transmitted over the coming Easter weekend. Forty six minutes of discussion were taped for a twenty four minute time slot so it is hoped she has not been edited out!!
- In the morning the activity at the Tangalle pilot project was filmed for a UK fund raising video about aid projects in the Tangalle district. A new batch of children started their Confidence-with-Water Course
- We now have 92 children registered.
- Monday 21 - Thursday 24 March
- The Confidence-with-Water Courses continue at Tangalle
- A Poya Day (holiday) in Sri Lanka. All stops but we do not.
- Julian, who had just returned from Australia the previous day, spent all of this day in a meeting with Petronella and Tony discussing the rapid progress made during his absence and what needed to be done now.. By the end of the day we had a new member of the team, Dav Whatmore, in a consulting capacity. At present he is the coach for the Bangladesh Cricket Team who have had a very successful last 2 months under his guidance. This is not too surprising .considering what he achieved when managing the Sri Lankan Cricket Team - winning the 1996 Cricket World Cup and becoming a Test Match side to be reckoned with. We are delighted to have him and his experience behind us.
- Today Julian and Petronella picked up our first water pump which is great as we shall no longer have to rely on the kindness of other people to lend us theirs. They also went to see Jonathan who is making our fibre-glass pools. Before the Sinhala New Year we should have our first three Fibre-Glass Training Pools ready.
- At 11 PM Julian rang us to tell us to turn the news on. Another earthquake, this time 8.7 on the Richter scale. Another tsunami? We started phoning as many people as possible to warn them. Meanwhile we watched BBC World. The threat was real!! Everybody was told that another tsunami would probably not happen for two thousand years. We would have to wait to see what would happen in the next few hours. How will this affect our kids? They were saying that everyone would be more prepared, but are the children’s minds ready to be more prepared? Another threat like this will not improve their state of mind. For us - we are even more determined than before to make the project go forward faster. Our need for more funds is great.
- Julian and Petronella set off for Tangalle at 6 AM for a one-day return trip
First stop was Galle where they met up with Robert Drummond of Friends of the South at his house for a breakfast meeting. We decided to work together with Friends of the South and they gave us funding for 4 more Training Pools. We will start establishing them in the Galle area as soon as possible. A huge thank you to all at Friends of the South - a very good start of the day! We will keep you informed of the progress.
- From Galle they went to Tangalle. There they first visited the Moraketiara camp where 95 fishing families are temporarily housed. The previous week Petronella had bumped into Kaluam, one of the fishermen at the camp. He invited her for a drink at his place. She was shown a drawing on the wall which Kaluam’s seven year old son had made one night. She was overwhelmed with the drama of the drawing. This confirmed her feeling that you did not have to be a child psychologist to recognise that some of the children had been very much affected by their experience of the Tsunami. She wanted to show Julian this drawing, and to take a photograph which could be seen on this web site.
- When they reached Tangalle they met up with the coaches to find that the pool had been temporarily removed. Why? After the Asian earthquake at the beginning of this week and the threat of a second tsunami, the people in the coastal areas were all very scared. We were shocked to find how this threat had really freaked the people out: in Colombo it was an event that was already forgotten, but not for them.
- They delivered the new pump, which will enable us to pump sea water into the training pools without having to rely on the help of the Navy who, up until now, had very kindly lent us one of theirs.
- When a torrential downpour started, they decided that this day’s classes would be cancelled. This gave Julian and Petronella the opportunity to have a thorough assessment meeting with the coaches on the progress of the project in the Tangalle area and to visit the prospective nearby pool locations.
It started to get dark and the duo still had 2 more meetings to attend. On the return journey they were unlucky to have a puncture and eventually reached Colombo at 3.15 AM!
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© SwimLanka Charitable Trust 2005-2006
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