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British
charities hail Lanka's tsunami-relief partnership Last week, the DEC trustees are said to have considered the assessment reports from tsunami-affected countries. The Sri Lanka assessment report is believed to have said that the partnership with the Sri Lanka Government was the easiest. Sri Lanka's High Commissioner Kshenuka Senewiratne said after a meeting with one of the NGO's in the DEC that Sri Lanka was the least problematic. This was the view conveyed to the High Commissioner by the Chief Executive of Merlin, Carolyn Miller. Ms. Miller had told Sri Lanka's envoy that state officials had been very helpful in the work of her organisation. Merlin is the only specialist UK charity that responds worldwide with vital health care and medical relief for vulnerable people caught up in natural disasters, conflict, disease and health system collapse. Since Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar visited London to thank the British Government and the DEC for the prompt assistance provided after the tsunami last December, High Commissioner Senewiratne has kept in touch with the NGOs in the umbrella organisation such as Oxfam, CAFOD, Merlin and others. Merlin in its report on Sri Lanka says that the country is now moving from an emergency into the reconstruction phase. To help restore the health facilities in the eastern and southern coasts severely damaged by the tsunami, Merlin says it has carried out repairs and has been building temporary health facilities. It refers to two health facilities already completed, including a new maternity ward at Kattankudy in the Batticaloa district which was opend to patients on May 6. Among its long term plans is to construct and equip seven health facilities -- three in Batticaloa district and four in Ampara district. Meanwhile, at a special tsunami commemoration service held last week at St Pauls' Cathedral, attended by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, one of the participants was Dr. Indrajith Coomaraswamy, Director of the Economic Affairs Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat. Dr. Coomaraswamy in his personal remembrance speech said that while all communities in Sri Lanka "bore the awful consequences of this calamity" it was the "poor who bore the brunt of the suffering in terms of lives lost and livelihoods destroyed. Sir Richard Attenborough, the famous actor who lost his daughter and grand daughter in the tsunami, also addressed the commemoration service. |
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