Phase 24 April up to June 2005:

The foundation stone is laid for the Tamil School. Not only today during the celebration at the beginning of June our Tamil matron Bawani is standing in the first row. The schools for the Tamil minority are usually more poorly equipped than the Sinhalese Schools. Tamil children in the countryside, especially girls have practically no chance to be educated. This will change now, because of the generous donation of the “Brieftaubenzüchter” in Germany.

We are not happy to let our young matron Chandralaka (left, in blue dress) go. Her parents have chosen a husband for this young Tamil lady. It doesn’t matter that her education is not finished yet and that she would really like to stay in Little Smile. Chandralaka has to obey her parents and to marry an unknown older man. Her departure makes many cry.

The three small „sausages“, our Pinki and two sausages, spiced with pepper from the children’s village. Whoever orders “Little Smile sausages” at his butcher is helping children in the far Sri Lanka. Many thanks to the spice company AVO and to all the butchers who sell this product as well as to all people who are eating our sausages.

Some help organisations care about the donations and want to know, how they are used. These 3 ladies are representing STERNSTUNDEN, Children for a better world, and a private foundation and are travelling throughout Sri Lanka with our coordinator in Kalmunai, Mr. Ramesh in June.

Also in the second half of the year we will continue with the invitations of children from the mostly destroyed East coast. In the children’s village Little Smile they are able to restore their “batteries”, find new friends and spend some carefree days.

In the evening of the 23rd of June employees of the children’s village were attacked by a crowd of drunken men from the village Koslanda after a school meeting. Our employee Dominik asked the Principal of the Sinhalese School at the meeting, why the Principal humbled children again and also physically maltreated them. The motorbike of our employee was burned, our vehicle seriously damaged. When Michael Kreitmeir was standing protectively in front of his employees he was also attacked with stones and hurt. Only 4 days after this incident he is able to receive medical treatment in a hospital. Till the end of the year this criminal act is not persued by the police, although the attackers are named and were reported to the police.