We would love to hear from you, and appreciate any feedback, comments
or suggestions you might have.
23rd March, 2005
Dear Friends,
THE TALPE REHABILITATION AND DEVELOPMENT TRUST
It is with great pleasure we forward to you an update regarding The
Talpe Rehabilitation and Development Trust.
As you will recall, in response to the need to have people re-housed
and rehabilitated, along with numerous generous offers of financial
assistance, Bruce and Harsha initially designed a low cost house within
the local authorities requirements that would provide initial shelter
with the ability to be extended at a later date when people were more
financially able and thereby encouraging the house recipients to work
to help themselves.
This "core" house was of 280 square feet in area and was
costed at Rs250,000 or US$2,500. The Governments have however decreed
that all houses to be built by either Government or N.G.O.'s must
be of 500 square feet in area and consist to one living/dining room,
two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom.
This has meant that the Trust must build the full house as originally
designed that is 627 square feet in area.
The house design incorporates a concrete tie beam at both floor and
roof levels and concrete columns, thus creating a strong, rigid and
stable structure.
The construction of the houses will be carried out by one of four
local contractors known to Bruce and Harsha, the architects have negotiated
an almost zero profit tender of Rs450,000 (US$4,500) 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 approximately two thirds of a normal market
tender. The four contractors traditionally draw their labour from
the village and surrounding Galle district and intend to continue
with this practise whilst building of the Trust houses.
In order to implement this process a legally constituted trust was
formed, "The Talpe Rehabilitation and Development Trust",
the Trustees are Bruce Fell-Smith, Harsha Weerakkody, along with Simon
Senaratna (Attorney at Law) who has his own practice in Colombo and
Bindu Wickramasekara (Attorney at Law) with his own practice in Galle.
Bindu and his family are from Talpe.
The Trustees decided that the person best placed to make decisions
as to who would be 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, thereby learning new skills 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 village.
Following the completion of the first house on the 16th March 2005,
the Trustees purchased a lovely piece of land 225 perches in area,
that is, 5,700 square metres in area.
This land has been planned to accommodate 19 houses, each on 8 perches
or 200 square metre lots, with a children's park of 35 perches, 900
square metres, containing a communal pavilion.
Photographs of the land and the housing layout are attached.
The ground breaking ceremony and start of construction of this village
took place on the 11th March at the auspicious time of 0810 as chosen
by the Reverend Sudhamma.
The Trustees will sign the sales and purchase agreement and complete
the sale of the second plot of land within the next few weeks and
further have agreed to build another six houses on land owned individually
by those that lost their homes to the tidal waves.
Our work is carried out on a voluntary basis thereby ensuring that
all monies received into the fund go to the re-settling of displaced
members of the Talpe community.
The National Geographic Channel may now be view on cable TV internationally,
the programme is called "Tsunami, One Place, Many Stories"
and features the work of the Talpe Rehabilitation and Development
Trust, we feel sure that you will be very moved by the programme and
have a greater understanding of how necessary is our work. The ground
breaking ceremony for the first trust house, which is now completed
and has been handed over to the family, is featured in the programme.
Once again friends, the Trustees thank you most sincerely for all
your generous donations.
Kind Regards
The Trustees – Bruce Fell-Smith
Harsha Weerakkody
Bindu Wickramasekera
Simon Senaratna
