What is Paalam?

PAALAM PROJECT

The 11th of May, 2002, saw the opening of the Paalam Project in Wattala, Sri Lanka. This has taken quite a few years to arrive at, not a little heartache and hard work. Alot of money, around £80,000 so far, but I reckon it was worth it. It has made quite an impact on the area. The building was full as the three ribbons for the three doors were cut by the Chief of Police, Adrian Hawkes, and Jenny Sinnadurai. The building has three floors. The ground floor has a great big hall that will accommodate hundreds of people, with a stage, and fans and lights everywhere -- you need the fans in that environment. The hall does not have fixed seats, and so can be multi-functional; it can be used for gathering the church, as it is used, but it could also be used for community events, and after the formal speeches and Great thanks to God, it was well able to cope with feeding the gathered crowd. At the back of the hall is an extensive kitchen done out to a good standard to enable that inevitable Sri Lankan pastime to take place -- eating rice and curry.

On the second floor are two well done out apartments, again to a high standard. This currently houses the teachers from the Paalam International School, and then a second apartment which houses Jenny and Karen when they are in the country, and usually a host of visitors. On this particular visit, loads of children from our Paalam Jaffna Orphanage. Then there are offices, reception areas, and school rooms.

The top floor is merely a slab of concrete, with no roof yet. We need around another £50,000 to put that on. Actually it is not just a roof, though it is that as well. What we also want to do is create another two apartments, and then a vocational training centre that would help people to get skills in various areas, such as IT, printing, sewing, etc.

Much to the amusement of those with us, I was fascinated by Karen Dey's inclusion of a huge water storage tank behind the building. Actually when you know that the water is cut off sometimes twice a day, and has been for weeks at a time, it's not such a daft idea, is it? We would like to add a large generator, as we also lose electricity at for at least two to three hours a day, and sometimes for longer.

If you want to help put those things in, please contact the Rainbow Office and we will tell you where to send your gifts.

At the opening were not only Adrian and Pauline, but at least 10 from the UK, including Norman Barnes from Links International, who has channelled a great deal of finance to this project. He brought businessmen with him. Then there were Kathy and Mike Pellatt from Generation Church. We then had a good ten or so leaders from our Swiss churches (Tamil churches that is, though it included Sylvia from the St. Gallen Church). Those Swiss churches have consistently and well financed the project.

PAALAM ORPHANAGE JAFFNA

Some of you may not be aware, but we have established an Orphanage in the War-torn area of Jaffna. At the moment, there are around 18 children there. This was the first time that any of them had been out of the Northern Peninsula. They returned to Jaffna the day Pauline and I flew back to London. The one little boy on my lap is not quite 4 years old. I asked Jenny Sinnadurai what happened with his family, to which she replied, "I asked that too", and was told that his Dad sold him for 10 rupees for a drink. That's a little less than 10 pence (there are 130 rupees to the £). All of them seem to be doing well, but this work needs to be expanded, probably with a school alongside, much like the one we are establishing in Wattala in September of 2002.

NEW HOME FOR GIRLS IN JAFFNA

Our very latest project is an exciting one. Really, Pauline and Jenny conceived this in a coffee conversation. Because of the war in Sri Lanka, many of the young girls get raped. As if that is not bad enough, because of the cultural implications of rape, young girls are then regarded by their families as unclean. Even Christian families are influenced by this culture. The young girl is then often abandoned to the streets, or worse, encouraged to commit suicide to save the disgrace on the family.

For the cost of £5,000.00, we can establish a house in the area to accommodate at least five of these girls. We have two already in our orphanage. PCC Rainbow and its friends have already raised £2,000.00 for this project and the land for the house has been donated.

Want to help? Send your gift to Rainbow Projects account and mark it "Sri Lanka Girls Home", and we will make sure it gets there. The on-going plan for the project, once it's open, is to provide education which is both basic and vocational, and in the meantime, these girls will help us with the younger ones in the orphanage.