Financial Times

Foreign volunteers, tourists help at makeshift relief centre
By Iromi Perera
Running onto the road and stopping aid trucks was not exactly what some foreign volunteers expected to do when they came to Sri Lanka to help. Allison, a New Yorker working for the Red Cross could not wait at home and watch the tragic stories and haunting images on the television.

She was given a ticket to come to Sri Lanka and when she came she started giving out medicine opposite the Peralya Sri Jinaratna Maha Vidyalaya, right next to the rail tracks at Thelwatte near Hikkaduwa. There was no aid given at all and many people had been suffering from illnesses and Allison and her friends had no choice but to get aid from passing trucks.

The centre slowly grew with the help of other foreigners and passing tourists and now it is functioning as a proper relief centre. The centre has been named as the 'Peralya Camp' and is very organized with all volunteers donning identification badges.

It does not receive any aid from any government as such and generous donors have donated all the medicine and other items there. There are doctors seeing to the needs of the children and giving medicine and there are also volunteers who are helping to build up the school. These volunteers are mostly foreign, hailing from all over the world. They are not from any organization but assembled there after they heard about the centre. Some are tourists who come to help for a few days and some are doctors and nurses who are helping out for a few months.

Several volunteers just drop in when they pass by or when they hear of this camp, which is in close proximity to the Thelwatte train station. There are around 20 volunteers at any given time.

The school had been cleaned up and painted the children were able to commence classes slowly thanks to the hard work of the volunteers. A record log is being set up by one of the volunteers to compile the medical history of the people as they have lost all documents.

This information once compiled will be given to the families who in turn can show them to a local doctor when they go for consultation. Trauma counseling sessions are conducted by way of puppet shows and games and some volunteers are even teaching the kids basic computer skills and to use cameras.

Esther Williamson, a volunteer who has been at the relief centre for around two weeks said that they are sending messages to everyone they know to come and help and also to send aid as the people in the area are all living in camps and most of them are not getting proper meals either.

People who know about the camp help put in any way possible, a perfect example being two German tourists who came on bicycles with two full boxes of medicines and handed it over to the camp when they heard about it.

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