Latest News

Mar

2009

Record Drought

A record drought has hit hard in Sri Lanka causing more suffering for farmers and a decrease in hydro-electric power. Unfortunately, our 10,000 tree reforestation project was launched at the same time as the drought started and we have experienced a 50% failure rate with our new tree plantings. We have now established micro-nurseries run by villagers to help provide new tree starts that will be used to replace the dead trees. The good news is that we are able to employ the local workforce to maintain the 10,000 tree goal. Once these fruit-bearing trees reach maturity in about five years, the village will have a new revenue stream and the economic transition from tea to fruit will take place.

The blueprint for the reforestation project was designed by both the local community and the local university Agro-forestry Department. Dr. Gamini Hittinayake is a senior lecturer of Agriculture at the University of Peradeniya and a consultant for the Community Friends land restoration project in Waitalawa. We are very fortunate to have Dr. Hittinayake’s expertise.

We are now hoping that the drought will be over with the coming of the next monsoon.

Carsten Henningsen

Mar

2009

Latha’s Baby

Latha’s baby girl, named Dasuni, is now 2 months old and happy at home. Her grandmother has been complaining about a rash on her skin but Dr. Ajith and Dr. Shalika said it’s nothing to worry about and it’s normal for new born babies.

Latha has not recovered from the fear on the day Dasuni was born. According to our doctors, baby Dasuni is quite healthy but still it’s too early to say whether she will have a full recovery from the Hypoxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) during birth. We need to monitor the baby’s growth and development. Our doctors will continue to monitor the baby closely.

Thanks,

Seevali Ratnakara

Jan

2009

Latha & Baby Return Home

After several days in the hospital, we drove Latha and her new daughter home for the first time. Her husband and parents were waiting to see the new family member for the first time. Both mother and daughter are doing well and we will post more news soon.

The last several days at the hospital have been an exhausting experience for everyone involved, including Community Friends’ volunteers. Since Latha’s family was unable to make the journey to the hospital in the city, Community Friends’ volunteers and doctors have been providing around the clock care.

Seevali Ratnakara

Jan

2009

Tree Planting Under Way

With the ground prepared, holes dug, fire breaks established, contour drains cut, the planting of our 10,000 is officially ready to commence. The work of planting trees is being supervised jointly by KP, Dr. Hittunayaka, Jeewa, Deva and Seevali. Working through KP, we have arranged for tea pluckers from the local community to mount the massive effort to get the trees into the ground during the present wet season. As this planting window could be very short, the whole crew is working long hours to make this happen as quickly as possible.

We anticipate that within five years, the fruit-bearing trees will begin to mature and the village can begin the transition from tea to more nutritious crops. Certainly this transition will benefit the villagers who now live in poverty and cannot even afford to buy the tea they grow for the factories.

Jay Goodfriend

Jan

2009

Latha’s Baby Is Born

The news about Latha is not good. She was admitted to the hospital January 4th in labor. Our volunteer clinic doctor, Dr. Ajith, and our directors arrived at around 10.00 p.m. Latha’s husband & parents were unable to make the trip from Waitalawa village to the city. In the second stage of delivery, the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck making normal delivery impossible. Doctors performed a surgical delivery. Due to the delay, the baby was in fetal distress. The baby girl is now in an incubator in the hospital’s special infant care unit. We checked on both mother and baby today but the condition is not stable yet.

Deva Ratnakara

Jan

2009

School Saved

Cambodia

The language school in rural Cambodia was threatened with closure when the landlord put the school property up for sale. A generous donor from the USA came forward and made a gift to Community Friends which allowed the school’s founder to purchase the property on behalf of the school. The children celebrated for days when they heard the news that the school would continue.

Carsten Henningsen

Jan

2009

Latha’s Pregnancy

Community Friends’ health clinic in Waitalawa, Sri Lanka, is in a remote mountain village situated in one of the best high-elevation tea plantation regions. Before we started offering monthly free clinics at the village, people had to walk nearly 10 kilometers to even reach a bus or three-wheeler to then take them to a local doctor. Our monthly clinics provide onsite health care led by our volunteer, Dr. Ajith, and other volunteer medical staff.

Last year, Latha, a newly married 22-year old woman came to our clinic. She lives with her parents and husband. Her husband works as a farmer in a small village far away from Waitalawa. After Latha’s marriage, her parents and husband wanted her to have a child immediately. Although she loves children, Latha explained that she was not emotionally ready. Her parents asked us to talk to their daughter about the situation.

latha

Seevali, one of our directors, along with our female doctor talked with Latha a couple of times and learned that she is afraid of becoming pregnant. We suggested therapy and our doctors began working with her. After only one month of therapy, we were surprised to hear that she was pregnant. She had decided to have a child without telling the doctors. She said that she “must please her parents and husband.” Her morning sickness became a serious illness compounded by her fear of pregnancy. Latha experienced continuous vomiting, no food intake at all, dehydration, and fainting until she suddenly collapsed. That night her mother called us for help. We went to the village and found Latha in very bad condition and immediately transported her to Kandy General Hospital about an hour’s drive from the village. Latha was admitted to the hospital and Dr. Ajith was alerted. Doctors at the hospital said that both Latha and her unborn baby were in critical danger.

Everything happened so quickly even her husband, who was away in another village working, didn’t know anything about the illness until he came home. While Latha was hospitalized, Seevali stayed with her each day, feeding her and personally monitoring her condition with hospital staff to make certain she was getting enough medical attention. The public hospital system requires having someone serve as a patient’s medical advocate. After three days in the hospital, Latha’s condition stabilized and she returned home to Waitalawa safely.

Latha is still coming to our monthly medical clinics and she is in good health now. Thanks to all Community Friends well-wishers and staff, we expect Latha will become a happy mother of a healthy child later this month.

Thanks,

Deva Ratnakara

Dec

2008

Hindu Blessing for Tree Planting

As we await the coming of the rain, the local villagers are holding a blessing ceremony on the land as a way of assuring our success. The whole community is now behind the effort and we are happy to be a part of their world. This occasion included good food and a large turn out of our friends and workers.

Jay Goodfriend

Dec

2008

Access to Health Care

Today I visited with an older women in Waitalawa. Heenmanike is a 63-year old tea plantation worker living and working in the village since she was 21. She came to our clinic for high blood pressure treatment. She has been suffering from the illness for more than 6 years. She has been unable to take regular medicine from the government hospital in the nearest town because the travel is too much for her both physically and financially. The journey is more than a 10 km walk and a 4 km bus ride from her home. Another option is to hire a three wheeler taxi which is very costly for villagers who often live on very little. On the days when there is work, the rate is between $1.75 and $3.75 USD a day depending on international tea prices. During the past years she has not been able to take the medicine regularly.

She started coming to our clinic in 2007 when the clinic started operating once a month. Our clinic doctors now attend to her with great care, monitoring her condition, giving her regular medicine, and treating the illness with personal care. Today the high blood pressure is under control and she is even going back to work on the tea plantations. She’s healthy and able to earn a salary again.

I’m able to help out at the monthly clinics and I always make a point to talk to the patients like Heenmanike. I enjoy getting to know them better in case someone needs more support form Community Friends. And this is a great way to understand and monitor the living conditions of villagers in Waitalawa.

Thanks,

Deva Ratnakara

Nov

2008

School Lunch in Post-Tsunami Village

Although the 27-year war in Sri Lanka in now over, it has not been safe to visit Ulla village where our relief efforts first began. We hope to reconnect with the village later this year.

Community Friends’ work began in the village of Ulla, in the Arugam Bay region of Sri Lanka. In the weeks following the tsunami, our co-founders Carsten Henningsen, Deva Ratnakara, Seevali Ratnakara, Dr. Thilina Karunathilake and Jeeva Maddumage led a group of volunteers to Ulla. Carrying food, medicine, water-purification equipment, hundreds of battery-less flashlights, and stacks of artwork sent as well-wishes by school children in Portland, Oregon, they were among the first people to reach this remote village with tangible help.

Since those early days, Community Friends’ interaction with the community has been accomplished through the village school, its teachers and principal. Funds raised by Community Friends helped pay for new school uniforms, new school books, and other critical items needed to get the school functioning.

Almost immediately after getting to know the community in Ulla, it became apparent that there was an urgent need to properly feed the 100 or so children coming to the village school each day. In fact, we learned that this need predated the tsunami, serving as an indication of just how significantly the community was suffering and how inadequate the local economy was in supporting the basic needs of the families living there. So it became immediately clear what was needed in Ulla.

We developed a program with several goals in mind:

1) feed all the children in the community,
2) maximize school attendance,
3) encourage community involvement in the Program,
4) maximize the nutritional content of these lunches,
5) achieve self-administration of the Program.

Working together with the parents and community educators, we developed a School Lunch Program. 50,000 hot meals were served by parent volunteers in the first two years since of the program. And we are very satisfied in saying that school attendance has increased by over 25% since this Program began.

The village and local government have taken over this Program and are able to continue this important work without additional assistance from Community Friends.

Jay Goodfriend