News50th Anniversary AppealFunds build a second pre-school in Sri Lanka to help children affected by the 2004 Tsunami The building of a second pre-school in the Tsunami-hit Hambantota district of Sri Lanka is being funded by Bell International thanks to the on-going generous donations from its staff, students and partner organisations, including a sizeable donation from Trinity College, Cambridge. The second school to be funded by the Bell Educational Trust will be located in a village named Colony 11, in Hambantota, which has a population of 800 families with approximately 60 pre-school aged children. The district of Hambantota is home to over half a million people in over 2,000 towns and villages. The tsunami of 26 December 2004 led to 10,000 deaths in this district, with 7,000 houses destroyed and a displaced population of up to 100,000 people. The Bell Educational Trust Fund has received over £13,000 to date since the launch of the Bell Fund in 2005, which was set up to provide high quality pre-school education facilities and teaching to those affected in the Tsunami-hit areas of 2004. As a pre-school for 80 children aged 3-5 costs as little as £6,000 to build, the Bell Educational Trust has funded two schools in total, including the building of Bell’s first pre-school situated in Koholankala, again in the Hambantota district of Sri Lanka, where approximately 500 people died, most of whom were involved in either the inland fisheries industry or small-scale farming, as a result of the 2004 Tsunami. The pre-school was opened in May 2006 and is now up and running with 45 students. In addition to funding the building work, the Bell Educational Trust Fund has also supported two teachers for one year. Building work for the Colony 11 school has already begun and will open later this year. The project is being run locally by The Janusuawaya Foundation, which is a local non-governmental organisation, together with Bell’s partner, Gateway, a well-respected Sri Lankan educational organisation. The foundation is involved in a variety of tsunami relief activities including the construction and setting up of 150 pre-schools throughout the Hambantota District.
|
|
