Homeless dogs have their day

The apartments have Persian-style carpets, chintz covered sofas and framed art on the walls. The occupants divide their time between beauty treatments and relaxing in front of the television. Welcome to America's most luxurious shelter for homeless dogs.

For man's best friend, only one thing is missing from the newly-built $7m complex in San Francisco: human companionship at night. But Rich Avanzino, the director, has proposed an ingenious, if controversial, remedy. He wants homeless people to move in. "It would help our animals if they got used to sleeping with human beings," he said.

The idea has upset campaigners for the homeless. They point out that the pet adoption centre, opened last month by the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), is far superior to any facilities available to 15,000 homeless people in the city. Their newest shelter, with 600 beds, is already infested with rodents and racoons.

"Lassie Lane", as the dog shelter is known, is funded entirely by private donations. The dog apartments are arranged in groups of three, each with its own courtyard and kitchen. Some have been designed in a Spanish mission style reminiscent of old San Francisco; others are in the grand high Victorian style of the city's expensive Pacific Heights neighbourhood.

Unlike most kennels, which ring to the sound of incessant barking, each apartment is soundproofed with 2in-thick plaster and heavy curtains. The colour televisions are on 24 hours a day. "Most of our overnight dog guests like Lassie movies," explained Avanzino.

The rooms, which have large picture windows, are odour-free. The carpets contain anti-microbial fibres to sterilise them and the air conditioning system exchanges stale air for fresh 17 times an hour.

At half-hourly intervals the dogs are swished from their apartments to a "French toilette". From there, they are led to the exercise park and finally to class, where they are given obedience training.

The shelter also contains 70 "cat condos", where felicitous felines watch bright blue and yellow fish swim to and fro in aquariums. Some of the rooms have stereos.

All the animals have weekly beauty sessions and check-ups from a vet and a behavioural therapist trained in animal psychology. The behaviourists analyse each pet's 20-page chart: did Lulu eat all her lunch, did Tara yap too much, did keewee gnaw a chair?

The purpose of such extensive grooming, training and analysis, explained Avanzino, is to prepare the animals, many of which arrive at the centre with severe medical and behavioural problems, for adoption.

"I wish the city and the government were as decent and humane to humans as the SPCA is to animals," said Paul Boden, director of the Coalition on Homelessness.

Avanzino, president of the San Francisco SPCA for 22 years, knew his proposal to allow homeless people to stay overnight would be provocative, but said he had discussed it with several agencies.

"Obviously this place was built as a pet hotel, so there will be some planning and health department issues to be ironed out," he said. There would be nowhere for the homeless people to have a bath, for example, nor could they bring their own pets.

The 1000 Voice Peace Concert

Over 1,400 young voices will rise in harmony at the '1000 Voice Peace Concert' on the 24th May, 1998, at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium. It is indeed fitting that the efforts of these young children drawn from twenty two schools in Colombo and the suburbs, will help the under privileged street children in the city. This event presented by the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), will be performed for the eighth time this year.

Kalasuri Lylie Godridge, who has been the inspiration behind this great performance first launched the Peace Concert in 1979 with 500 voices. His objective was simply to encourage the enjoyment of music and singing together among young people. Since then it has gathered momentum with more and more schoolchildren participating. The children are trained at their schools by the teachers in charge, under the direction and guidance of Lylie Godridge. At the concert, the choir will be conducted by him. He himself often travels from school to school to oversee the training of the choirs. As an encouragement to the children, each of them will receive a Certificate of Participation.

This year, the concert has a two fold objective. Being the 50th anniversary of Sri Lanka's Independence, it is appropriate that children from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds will sing together, songs of peace, unity, brotherhood, friendship and love. Secondly, the proceeds of the concert will be utilized for the Street Children's Project of the YMCA.

The Colombo YMCA has been involved in assisting the under privileged children in Colombo City since 1978. Over 200 children have been helped through YMCA sponsored projects such as camps, educational programmes and self employment projects. "More and more children from the lower rungs of society have been forced into undesirable activities like stealing and child prostitution, a member of the organising committee said. "There are children who have never got the opportunity to obtain a sound education."

By utilizing the funds raised by this concert, the YMCA hopes to contribute to the upliftment of the living standards of these children. The main objectives of the Street Children's Project is to educate these children in healthy living, train them in self employment, provide a home which they can come to at any time and to create an atmosphere wherein they feel wanted and accepted by society.

Since the choir is so large, the concert is held at the Sugathadasa Stadium which is costing Rs.83,000 to hire. The stadium has a seating capacity of 8,000. The organizers hope that they will have a good response from the public in order to cover the costs as well as raise funds for their project through the sale of tickets which are priced nominally at Rs.20/- each. The Indian High Commissioner, Sri Shiv Shankar Menon will be the Chief Guest at the Peace concert which is scheduled to begin at 5.30 p.m. on Sunday the 24th May.

Pretty Things at Majestic City

By Chamintha Thilakarathna

Many products of the village folk goes un noticed and their efforts and talents can't find the kind of price or place they deserve in the competitive markets. But, hand made linen products and paintings have found a place in the cosy little shop opened by Mr. Naresh Assudomal and his sister, Dina Assudomal for the purpose of giving these folk their due place and to improve and preserve ignored arts.

'Pretty Things' at second floor Majestic City, as it has been named by the Asxsudomals, has attracts locally manufactured using none other than items that one finds in the back yard of one's house. Like what? Well, like banana trunks, pineapple and other leaves, and many wild flowers that can be used to make die with, to name a few.

"Our intention is not to make big money. Our idea is to bring back the old traditions and methods of colouring and making linen and to make them available at affordable prices. After having spent many years in Spain we came across many items similar to those done by rural folk here. So, we decided that when we come back to Sri Lanka, to provide them an opportunity to bring out their talents," said Naresh Assudomal.

From shawls, sweaters, hats, table clothes, towels, dolls, glass covers, bed sheets, cushions, to curtains, wall hangings, paintings, made by hand with pure silk and fibres, and painted with various natural dyes from the garden can be found displayed to meet the taste of every individual.

"It takes a lot of had work for these people to make thread out of the leaves, but they are good at it and they know the art of doing it. We defintiley don't want it to die away," Naresh said.

They also hope to introduce handmade cross stitching and embroidery as well in the weeks to come. The colourful designs on many of the wall hangings and paintings are unique and cannot be repeated at all.

"Many of our customers insist on colours of their choice with the patterns that we have already done on napkins etc., but we are unable to do this because the people who do the work don't keep track of their designs, the patterns change from item to item , which is why we say that majority of items are unique," he said.

The colour combinations are beautiful and eye catching. The secret of their beauty is not evident. Cushions with designs from ducks to flowers and various abstracts, seems to be making a statement of their own.

How did he manage to find such rare talent? "When travelling around the country we came across a number of people of this nature.

They are spread around the island. All we had to do was to give them encouragement and new ideas and they are more than capable of doing a fantastic job. It is a pity to ignore such talent," he said.

Watching and admiring the works of these craftspeople, it was even more amazing to discover how they actually do it. "Its hard work." Naresh said. Taking the leaves and trunk, they separate them into long pieces and keep on seperating it to smaller pieces till it threads out. Then, the fibre is used to make the sweaters, hats and other things displayed at the shop. The process is similar in the csae of the silk and the natural dyes used.

"We try to limit our products to all naturally and locally made goods to encourage Sri Lankan items and mehtods," was Naresh's reasoning.

A visit to the shop will undoubtedly make any customer wander 'oh my!'

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