About Us

The Talpe Rehabilitation & Development Trust

Following the disastrous tsunami in Sri Lanka, the Galle area and especially the villages of Talpe, Habaraduwa and Unawattuna are devastated.

There have been thousands of deaths, as well as thousands of other people displaced due to the destruction of their simple homes.

In response to the need to have people re-housed and rehabilitated, along with numerous generous offers of financial assistance, a low cost house within the local authorities requirements was designed. This will provide initial shelter with the ability to be extended at a later date when people are more financially able and thereby encouraging the recipients to work to help themselves.

The design of the house is compatible with the lifestyle of the Talpe villagers. Each house will consist of one large room plus a kitchen and a bathroom. The design of the house incorporates a concrete tie beam at both floor and ceiling levels thus creating a strong, rigid and stable structure.

In order to implement this process a legally constituted trust was formed. The Trustees are:

Mr. Bruce Fell-Smith (Company director),
Mr. Bindu Wickramasekera (Attorney at law)
Mr. Harsha Weerakkody (Chartered architect), and
Mr. Simon Senaratne (Attorney at law).

The construction of the houses is to be carried out by one of four local contractors known to Bruce and Harsha, The architects have negotiated an almost zero profit tender of Rs.250,000 (US$2,500) per house, excluding the land content, further, the Contractors have agreed to hold this price for three months and thereafter to reassess the quote with regards the availability of and stability of, the cost of building materials. This price represents approx. two thirds of a normal market tender. The four contractors traditionally draw their labour from the village and surrounding Galle district their intension is to continue with this practice whilst building the Trust houses.(See Plan)

The Trustees decided that the person best placed to make decisions as to who are the most worthy recipients of the Trust houses would be the Venerable Sitinamaluwe Sudhamma Thero, Senior Monk of the Talpe Buddhist Temple. The recipients for each house will be known in advance so that each senior male family member, if currently unemployed, will be employed by the relevant contractor and paid a wage during the construction of his own house, learning new skills thereby enabling the contractors to offer future employment. The houses will be leased at no cost to the families on the understanding that the houses will be gifted to them after a period of five years of good standing within the Model Village, thus prohibiting the recipients from selling the houses for a minimum of five years.

The Trust work is carried out on a voluntary basis thereby ensuring that all monies received into the fund go to the re-settling of displaced villagers.

The Trust has indeed been fortunate that National Geographic International TV Channel chose Talpe in which to focus their story of the tsunami destruction and subsequent rehabilitation. The NGC crew filmed the first two ground breaking ceremonies of the first two Trust houses the completion is due in roughly three weeks. The construction period for each house is roughly six weeks. The programme will go to air, internationally 16 times throughout the month of March and thereafter less frequently through to July. National Geographic Channel will return to Talpe to record the progress within the community at the first anniversary of that dreadful disaster.