Scotland's Buddhist Vihara runs four inter-connected Tsunami- relief projects in Sri Lanka. The projects were created based on achievable long-term goals. The aims are essentially guiding principals. On the basis of an Executive sponsored 'Fact Finding Mission' Venerable Rewatha, together with key committee members travelled to the South of Sri Lanka to ascertain what could feasibly be done by a small N.G.O to bring effective relief to people in one of the worst affected areas of Tsunami hit Sri Lanka.

As a result of this mission a report was created and presented to the Executive and the key aims of Scotland's Buddhist Vihara's Tsunami Relief effort were established.  

SBV established an NGO in Sri Lanka called SBV Foundation to enable our Sri Lankan partners to work directly in affected communities.

This foundation is made up of 1 full time paid operations manager and 5 voluntary directors, in charge of 10 part time volunteers from the committee

The schema of the projects is as follows:

Current Projects:

Widowed Women / Men Livelihood Development:

This project is already well under way and proving to be highly effective. As mentioned earlier the women were seen to bear the brunt of the Tsunami. They found themselves with the double burden of the losing their partner and losing their family income. As a result of this there was a tremendous pressure put on the surviving families as the women now had the child care and to find an income.

The project scope is for three years. In the first year women have been interviewed in Matara and Galle Districts to ascertain what help they feel they need. From this two main themes developed. The first was a desire to create small businesses common in Southern Sri Lanka.

These are ranges from fruit and vegetable stalls, fish stalls or 'short eats' or craft stalls making toys or garments for sale. The other type of assistance was for women to be trained. Common working in telecommunications, as operatives or date input operatives require college certification.

The costs of these forms of assistance for enrolment and the licenses and material needs for self-employment could be met by the project.

The second year of the project aims at assisting widowed men with surviving families in very much the same way as for widowed women.

The Scottish Executive is funding this project for three years.

The Orphanage

One of the terrible outcomes of the Tsunami was the number of children orphaned. Many of these children were left in highly vulnerable situations with no extended family help and no immediate formal help. Among these were children with clear psychological problems.

Working in conjunction with the local health authorities, and with financial assistance from the Central Gurduwar - the Sikh community in Glasgow - SBV began the building of an orphanage to house twenty identified 'at risk children'.

Many of these children are vulnerable to being drawn into crime or terrorist organisation or into immoral behaviour.

As a matter of urgency SBV now has the 3 storey orphanage well underway. The full emotional and psychological needs of these boys falls within the scope of the project. The Scottish Executive is funding 3 years of this project.

Scholarship programme

This project actually grew out of requests among the Glaswegian supporters of the Vihara who wanted a way to help the families who were headed by widowed women or men. SBV established a method of sponsorship through small sums given by Direct Debits which could be administered by SBV Foundation. Simple sums of money can go a long way to helping children through the most critical of times.

A women widowed by the Tsunami will simply not have the money to buy her children the most basic of items like a schoolbag a T shirt or shoes. The supporters of SBV in Glasgow can give the children these small but essential items through their sponsorship of the children.

Working in conjunction with the NewsLanka, a Sri Lankan weekly newspaper, SBV continues to raise awareness of individual cases through advertising and writing campaigns.

Metta Scotlad well-being centre in Matara.

We are creating a Community Clinic in Matara District. It will be of suitable size to run several functions at once. In order to support the women in our 'widowed women employment/training' project it became apparent that one of the biggest impediments they faced was the question of childcare. These women themselves can run a creche facility within the clinic and we are very keen to use the space creatively encouraging children into programmes of arts and crafts .