News

Student volunteers set off for Sri Lanka to work in community struck by tsunami

(4 July 2006)

A group of 15 Durham University student volunteers are spending eight weeks in Sri Lanka helping with the rehabilitation and reconstruction of a community devastated by the East Asian tsunami in 2004, as part of a large British Council and HEFCE supported project.

The students arrive in the south of Sri Lanka today (4 July) after a busy final week of preparation when some of the students met members of the Sri Lanka cricket team, some were learning to use video news-gathering equipment and seven of them attended their graduation ceremonies in Durham Cathedral.

The Durham University-led Project Sri Lanka has been recognised by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) as a landmark operation, one of the most comprehensive university schemes in the UK with elements of fundraising, teaching and research included and partners involved from across the University and and is part-funding the Project as a Pilot Study in Internationalisation that will allow three or more Durham academics to teach for up to a term at the University of Ruhuna. In turn, the British Council is paying for Ruhuna academics to visit Durham to exchange ideas.

The 15 Durham student volunteers are engaging in a wide range of educational, sporting and cultural activities. They are working in a preschool at Palana West which has been built and equipped from funds raised by these students and the Durham University Charities Kommittee (DUCK) over the last six months. They will also be helping to teach fellow students at the University of Ruhuna, at the heart of the tsunami-devastated southern province, and in a school at Moraketiara, which is being funded by Alnwick Council, Rotarians and other North East regional sponsors.

The project is supported by the people in Durham City, the congregation of Durham Cathedral, schools and organisations in the North East as well as staff and students at the University in a joint effort to raise funds for the education of children in their adopted village of Palana West.

Two players in the Sri Lanka cricket tour squad - bowler Lasith Malinga and opening bat Upul Tharanga, who both come of the tsunami-hit south of the country - met four of the students during a visit to the Durham County Cricket Riverside Ground in Chester-le-Street last week. They were pleased to hear that the students would be visiting and working in their home region and wished them every success with the project.

Caroline Le Breton, one of the students who met the cricketers, said: “It is very good to make the players aware of what we are doing. Cricket is very popular among the children at the school and we will be able to tell them about it.“

Caroline, from Dorking in Surrey, has just graduated from her four-year degree course in Combined Arts. During her gap year before coming to Durham she taught in a school in Kenya. She is one of the three team leaders among the 15.

Another brand new graduate, Cameron Salter, who is the volunteer group’s treasurer, also met the cricketers. Cameron, who read theoretical physics, is from The Wirral and he also has experience of teaching and running community activities in Kenya. Helen Armstrong, a Combined Social Sciences Student from Coleraine in Northern Ireland, is the associate leader for welfare, and Marc Stewart, of Sittingbourne, Kent, and a history student, has the challenging task of organising the group’s transport arrangements through the eight-week stay.

Project Leader, Professor Joy Palmer-Cooper, who has developed the links with Ruhuna University and the community projects, praised the students for the hard work in fundraising and other preparations for their visit. She will be visiting Sri Lanka again later in the year, but as the students left the UK, she said: “This has been planned to be a sustained programme of co-operation and support involving both countries. It was essential that the students were personally involved and they have been there from the start, at the heart of the project. We are making real links, and thanks to their efforts, ideas and enthusiasm we are building something to last.”

To find out more about Project Sri Lanka go to http://www.dur.ac.uk/project.srilanka/.