The Ocean Stars Trust

kalkudah playgroup

Thanks to everyone for your continued support & generosity. It is through your support that the Ocean Stars Trust (OST) is able to continue making a real difference to the lives of people in Sri Lanka.

Since our last newsletter in June, two of our trustees, Dilanee and Janaki have been able to visit the island. The purpose of the trip in October was to review, first hand, the projects that OST is supporting and to assess the current needs of the people, especially in light of ongoing civil conflict in the country.

Our latest newsletter is available here in PDF format.

(A free PDF reader can be downloaded here if you don’t already have one.)

Click here for the June 2007 newsletter in PDF format.

(A free PDF reader can be downloaded here if you don’t already have one.)

From the Fleet, Farnborough and Aldershot Mail:

As many of you may have seen in the media the civil war in Sri Lanka has now escalated quite dramatically.

The Ocean Stars Trustees would like to reassure all our donors that we are in regular contact with our Sri Lankan counterparts and we are monitoring the situation daily. According to latest reports all our families are safe and receiving their regular monthly payments. For many this is the only source of income at the moment.

Please watch this website for future updates.

Dilanee, Shona, Jo, Jan and John
Ocean Stars Trust Trustees.

Sorry it has taken so long, but we have now managed to get Novembers newsletter on-line. Click here to see it.

[From The Flag, BP’s Shipping newsletter]
People often wonder what has happened with the assistance BP Shipping gives to people in need or organisations whose mission it is to help others.

A small part of BP Shipping’s post tsunami support landed in Weligama, Sri Lanka, where a fishing boat enterprise, owned by Sunil Jayantha, received £1,200.

The donation was channelled through the Ocean Stars Trust (www.oceanstars.org.uk), which was set up to provide relief to victims of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka and victims of the recent armed conflict.

BP boat for Weligama

The three main objectives of Ocean Stars:
1) Providing immediate tsunami relief to families
2) identifying projects for long term funding
3) trauma counselling work with adults and children

It will please you to know that the boat is now being used operationally and eleven families are now back learning a living thanks to BP.

John Bunter on Ben Nevis June 17 2006

Pictured is OST Trustee John Bunter at the top of Ben Nevis. The Ben Nevis sponsored walk arose from a Trustees’ Meeting in the early Spring when we were looking for a fund-raising event. In the end John completed the walk with an assortment of old College friends, and others, on Saturday 17 June.

Waking up in Fort William to streaming rain, the group feared the worst, but a little drizzle at 10.00 am at the bottom (35m)soon cleared to brilliant climbing conditions, such that the summit (1340m) was reached in 3 hours 10. It took just under that time to descend, such was the combination of a rather bouldery path and tired legs.

At the top there was an amount of snow, and conditions were at times absolutely clear, and there again when the cloud descended it was absolutely
freezing.

Many thanks to the trustees who helped out with the planning and logistics, and to John’s fellow climbers Simon, Steve, Tim, Andrew and Richard. It is hoped through sponsorship to raise £1,000.

Group on the top of Ben Nevis

A special thank you to those supporters who have sent cheques having read of the climb in the June 06 Newsletter. The blue cap worn by John in one picture is the cap of Dogmersfield Cricket Club, where John found a lot of sponsor from the U11s teams’ families.

Dilanee wrote a newsletter in June and it has taken a little while to get the web version of it working. However, with our new website upgrade we hope to get news out quicker in future. You can read the June’s newsletter here.

Welcome to the Ocean Stars Trust website. Today is upgrade day and things are in a bit of a mess. Normal service will be resumed shortly (i.e. today). Apologies for any inconvenience.

-webmaster