SUMMARY FROM THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

 

	The last eighteen months have been an extraordinary initiation for Friends of the South (FoS). We were legally established in June 2004 as a Charitable Association by a group of seven friends, the current Board of Directors, who all work on an entirely voluntary basis. Three are Sri Lankan and four expat, and all live in and around Galle in southern Sri Lanka. These seven shared the desire to help the disadvantaged and act as a conduit for donations from foreign visitors. Thus FoS came into being, with the remit to ‘improve the lives of people living in southern Sri Lanka.’ A small operation was envisaged that helped a few chosen projects every year. The tsunami of 26 December 2004 changed all that overnight. The scale of the disaster, as well as the scale of the response, saw us receiving significant donations from around the world. It was clear to us that we needed to continue playing to our main strength, our local contact network, and use this to channel the funds we raised as efficiently as possible to the needs we identified. Thus we greatly expanded the scope of our Livelihood Project, helping to boost local small business and employment. We established a program of support for the local fishing industry, called Fishermen’s Friends. We supported an initiative to help relieve trauma and fear of the water for children and teach them to swim, Swim Lanka. We supported a long-term scholarship programme for affected children, Sponsor-a-Child. And we assisted a large number of one-off, ad hoc causes we identified. These projects are continuing, and we are constantly assessing and starting up new projects in response to the evolving situation on the ground. In recent months we have been moving away from a purely tsunami focus as there is so much need for help behind the narrow strip that was affected. We are extremely pleased with our progress to date. By November this has seen around Rs25,500,000 (approx US$250,000) channeled directly to end recipients. Over 99% of donation money, after local tax, goes to end recipients. None of this would have been possible without the generous support of all our donors, to whom a very big Thank You.