kalkudah playgroup

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.)

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

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.

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

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.

-webmaster