It's official. Project W.O.R.K. concluded April 4th, 2006 by watching previously homeless families readily and happily move into their new homes. The four remaining volunteers of Jesper, Andy, Joe and myself celebrated for a brief 10-15 minutes with each family in their homes by sharing in an abundance of traditional homemade goods, lighting of coconut oil candles, and the receiving of special tree leaves from the families as they knelt in thanks. It was a big day for everyone. There were many happy faces all around as curtains were hung in windows, sidewalks and interiors were swept and cleaned by their proud owners, children taking turns enjoying the swing Brian installed one weekend and the four of us trying to absorb it all. There were so many other people back home who made this project possible but were unable to attend this final day and they were certainly in all our thoughts.

Thanks to several volunteers and their own funds, our close and extremely hard working Sinhala friends are also getting a leg up on an unfavorable Sri Lankan economy. Godage's 4-year old son is assured to receive an otherwise unaffordable heart surgery he may need within the next 1-10 years. Ranjith will be able to start a new life as a tuc-tuc driver and get off his painfully bad hips. Lasantha has enough building material to make a great start on his block home and get his family out of their basic wooden shelter. Premasiri, a.k.a. "tea-man", has enough blocks and mortar to now get his home site up to roof level and move his family out of the lean-to they have built into the hillside. Chuttie has caught up with his mortgage and is very close to having his family out of debt which will enable them to continue their childrens formal education. Shantha and his wife are on their way to independance with a store started out of their corner-lot home. Neville and Ranuka are also on their way towards making nicer liveable homes and lives for their families. Supa, the Sri Gemunu cook, will now have a decent roof for his home and family as well. And last but not least is the hearing aid purchased for Kaushall, a 14-year old apprentice who now knows a world of sounds and choices.

The project isn't quite finished though. We are about $1,150 shy of being able to completely pay for the electrical connection to our land. We have $1,350 left in our account which we thought would be a little more than enough. Instead, we were told by the electric company it would be roughly $2,500 for meter boxes and wire for our seven houses and to run the three phase wire the 120 meters to our site.

As we have all the houses fully wired and ready to go, we only need half of the necessary $2,500 to make it all come together. Without our help in getting this electricity run to the land it would frankly never happen. You can make a big difference in the lives of these 7 families with a small donation.  If you would like to give any amount to help us acheive this last bit of work necessary we as well as the seven families would be so appreciative. Once we have raised the $1,150 needed, we will wire the money to our local contact and manager Paul Ferreira who will then pay the fees required by the electric company. After payment, it should be only 2-3 weeks to have the two power poles we need erected and the wires run to our houses. To see how all donated money has been spent thus far an itemized list of the project expenditures is now available for review. The last few donations needed can be made via credit card thru the PayPal link below.

Thank you for anything you can give.

- Chris & Jesper

April 12, 2006