|
|
|
|
Opening
times:
Mon –Thurs 9.00-5.00
Fri 9.00-4.00
Sat 9.00-12.00
|
|
|
| | Helping Others "Hat Foundation" | | | | Click here for our latest update.
Who can forget that awful day in 2004 when we woke up to the news that a tsunami had devastated Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand among other countries.
Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, hundreds of thousands more lost everything and some of the poorest countries were left wondering how they were going to pick up the pieces and start all over again.
For Cavan Sullivan, a businessman from Barry, the event spurred him to action. Like millions of people watching the horrific events unfold on our television screens, Cavan knew he wanted to do something to help. | |
 | "I decided I didn't want to give money to a charity. Instead, I decided I wanted to pay for house to be built for one family" he said.
He approached charities to find out how he could go about it, but after finding that they were unable to help, he then contacted embassy's and high commissions affected by the disaster.
The Sri Lanka High Commission in London put him in touch with a charity called the Foundation of Goodness and Cavan's project got underway. |
"They told me they could build a brick house rather than wood and it was decided that they would go ahead with the project, which I would pay for, and then my wife and I would visit the house once it was complete". said Cavan. "I started contacting the charities in January 2005 and the project finally go started in the August. The house was finished January 2006 and we went out there the following month to meet the family who would be living there".
The house is in a tiny remote village, five kilometres in land on the banks of a river, close to a town called Hikkaduwa in the south west of Sri Lanka. The village was devastated as the killer wave rushed up the river causing devastaion in it's path.
The house is now home to the Lounaris family - Samina, who at the time was aged four, and her grandfather and grandmother.
The house was paid for by Cavan, friends and customers of his double glazing firm, Welsh Windows. He said he could not have carried out the project, and the subsiquent ones, without their help. He said St. Helen's Infant School in Barry had also helped with fundraising.
He has also provided curtains for the house, a bike for Samina's grandfather, and has set up a fund so Samina can be educated to university age. "She may not want to go to university, but a least she has the opportunity if she wants to it." said Cavan, who also pays for the family to regularly buy Samina milk.
"They had very little when the tsunami struck and they lost everything. I watched it on Boxing Day and decided I wanted to give something back to the people who were affected." said Cavan.
But that was jus the start of his work in Srio Lanka which has seen him buying shoes for children at local schools and paying for medicine for Niroshan, a young boy who needed a kidney transplant but who needed to show he could afford the medicine he would have to take after the operation.
|
Cavan, his wife Debra, and their daughter have visited Sri Lanka twice now.
A keen diver, Cavan spends the mornings of his trips enjoying the diving before driving up to the village and the schools he has helped to see how things are going.
He has plans to buy computers for one of the schools and also wants to provide a well for the village where Samina lives.
He said "I was only the second foreign visitor to one of the schools I went to. We had to get the children to draw round their feet on an A4 piece of paper and then write there name on it so we knew what sizes to buy for which child. Some of them had never owned a pair of shoes."
"The children were great. They were real kids, outside playing. They really welcomed me," said Cavan. "All we ask is that anyone we help goes to school and that they learn English, which could help them in life," he said.
Cavan and Debra have planned another trip to Sri Lanka early this year to see how the money they have raised is helping and to find out if there are other ways they can help. |
| | | |
Click here to see our final report on our 2005/2006 achievements (112 KB).
Click here to see our final report on our 2007 achievements (983 KB).
Click here to see our update on Jan 2008 (143 KB).
Click here to see our update on Apr 2008 (1.54 MB).
| The new home for the Loveneris Family | | | | | Mr Loveneris and Wife granddaughter Samina and Cavan and Deb and lots of other villagers | | | | Cavan and Shane as I deliver new pots etc to sponsored house | | | | I present new bike to Mr loveneris | | | | | My wife Deb, Daughter Aimee, Samina and other girl | | | | Photo inside house with us all even Mr Loveneris manages a smile. | | | | Mud Hut typical construction before new houses. | | | | Samina and friends sitting on wall. | | | | | New curtains, clothes, sandals, plates, cups, cutlery, knives, umbrella and clock etc for the family | | | | Trip to Lanka Electricity board to connect electric. | | | | Very impressed with Lanka electricity board. | | | | Sadly the well is almost dry. | | | | Typical form of transport the “Tuk Tuk” | | | | My local shop always greeted with a smile. | | | | Me and my daughter on dive to 100ft | | | | Me and one of the Best young drivers in the world. Ps (Also drives a car, motorbike Captains a boat and good on the GPS too. Age Nine! | | | | | | | | We sent food packages to each of these children. | | | | We sent food packages to each of these children. | | | | We sent food packages to each of these children. | | | | Plaque to commemorate the 1270 train passengers and 249 Villagers who lost there lives at Peraliya on Boxing day 2004 | | | | Samina who lives in the house we sponsored. | | | | We have sponsored this family to learn the English language over the next two years. | | | | | | Three pot damsel with fauna. | | | | | | Mr loveneris climbs a King coconut tree to get “Cavan” a cool drink | | | | My wife Debra with the little girl “Samina”. | | | | 39 “The best young diver in the world” and my daughter Aimee | | | | Who says you can’t talk underwater | | | | After many years of learning diving skills, I show how to eat an orange underwater. Perhaps Padi will bring a course out for this! (Padi divers joke). | | | | | A gang of kids eating lollies. | | | | Family we would like to help. | | | | Young lad that needs our help. | | | | Children in school with no shoes | | | | “The lolly master”. (If you have read report). | | | | Two top of the range belt driven bikes. (Cavan and Aimee). | | | | | My “trusty rusty” bike, belt driven. | | | | It may be scaffold but I don’t think Nathan and Ricky would accept it! | | | | | | Aimee at a shoe presentation, 2008. | | | | | | Aimee at a shoe presentation, 2008. | | | | | | Aimee at a shoe presentation, 2008. | | | | | | Aimee at a shoe presentation, 2008. | | | | | | Aimee's shoe speech, 2008. | | | | | | | Aimee and Nicola at a shoe presentation, 2008. | | | | | | | | Udmulla children's party,2008. | | | | | | Udmulla children's party, 2008. | | | | | | | Rotary donation in Barry, 2008. | | | | | | Shoe presentation at Horigampita School, 2007. | | | | | | |
|
Install Flash
Player
