First stop Weligama, where I spoke to fishermen as to how new fishing boats would be operated. It was agreed by all that must be one Manager for each boat who will be responsible for fuelling, maintenance and fish sales. The standard catamaran usually employs 10 people. All agreed that the Manager would receive a higher income than the rest of the crew taking 30% of all earnings, from which he has to fuel and maintain the boat, the remaining 70% will be divided evenly amongst the crew.

I have lent my own catamaran to a fisherman who lost his wife and daughter in the Tsunami.

We will launch it tomorrow; employing 10 fishermen who will work it as a cooperative.

I then went onto Mirissa where I met one of my partners, Pierre Pringiers. We discussed that our first large fishing trawler will be also be launched next week. This vessel was generously donated by Tesco stores in England .

I then met with Jane and Steven who will be managing our project to build 104 houses for fishermen in Mirissa. This is a very exciting project and will be featured in full on our website in the next week. The housing project requires a further USD$300,000 to fund it completely.

Work will begin on the first 10 houses on the 31 st January.

Next week we will also be concentrating on finalising the schools available in our Adopt a School project. 

Apologies if I have not been providing regular updates, however in the last 10 days there have been major changes on the ground here and we have had to constantly reassess our policies.
We have now become much more focused on what we are doing and all parties in the triumvirate (Taprobane Trust PVT Limited, LoadStar PVT Limited & Target Agriculture) have been turning their attention to specific projects, in addition our coalition partners are also facing the same issues and responding in a similar vein.

We all continue to work with each other.

Loadstar have focussed very much on repairing engines and boats and have been helped by the arrival of the Belgium Army who have been deployed the Weligama area. They are raising boats, clearing debris etc. Loadstar continues to renovate schools and is also working on their major project of developing plans for 600 houses. Thomas Gerbracht from Target Agriculture has continued to provide humanitarian assistance and has also been working on a twinning project with Weligama and Frankfurt , Germany .

Target Agriculture are also looking at a housing project and are assessing ways of how they can utilise the companies expertise in the organic farming to provide projects for employment of villages. All of these projects are long term and need careful consideration.

At our AdoptSriLanka office, we have been putting systems in place to ensure that all projects will be handled efficiently and effectively in the long-term. We have now assembled a tremendous team, mainly of volunteers who are dedicated to ensuring that all monies donated are spent in the most effective way.

In the last few days, AdoptSriLanka has become committed to the following projects:

• 1. Building a village of 104 houses in Mirissa.
• 2. Building a new Montessori school in Seenimodera village in Tangalle.
• 3. Setting up a boat repair yard in Mahwella, near Tangalle.
• 4. Setting up an engine repair yard in Mahwella.
• 5. Setting up a new boatyard in Mirissa.
• 6. We have distributed new schoolbooks to a further 34 schools and are conducting surveys on schools who want to be included in our Adopt a School programme.
• 7. We have donated funds to a charity providing relief to children from displaced areas.

We will be posting details on the above projects and also providing more details of how your money is being spent by Monday.

We decide to set up a proper office for Adoptsrilanka in Galle with a field office in Tangalle. We spend time organising logistics for all our projects and head out to open a 2nd boat engine repair shop in Weligama and assess the merits of setting up one in Tangalle. We decide to go for it!

We set about to develop some key communication channels with NGO's in the area and work closely with them wherever possible. We emphasise that our efforts are focussed on the micro level projects that often get overlooked in a crisis of this magnitude.

We stress that we can have ability to action things that larger NGO's can not as well as actioning them quickly.

We have a meeting with the Navy Commander in Tangalle and he promises to provide us with engineers and other manpower that we will need.

On returning to Galle, one of my staff members has a motorcycle accident resulting in 9 stitches...he is well cared for with doctors from a foreign medical unit.

The focus is changing on a daily basis now - humanitarian aid is winding down, our cooked food programme has stopped and our home food delivery service is slowing down. We have delivered some welcome home packs (pots and pans etc) to those people who are returning home. Our focus now is on getting people back to work and getting them self-sufficient.

Aid organisations are beginning to appear in Galle and journalists are leaving every day. Foreign armed forces very much in abundance, a Cuban medical unit has pitched its tents next to the Americans.

We are continuing to meet with our coalition members spending the time reassessing our game plan. Our key focus is one the micro issues in each village concentrating our efforts on our Adopt a School program, Operation Fish and Ships and our latest initiative, Work for Widows.

The fishing projects in Weligama and Merissa are proceeding well and we order our first new boats to be made by a local shipbuilder with the first boat being completed in 3 days time.

I proceed down to Tangalle but first make a stop in Matara to see one of the local MP's who is also the Minister for Ports and Aviation and the Deputy Minister for Education. We exchange many ideas, which he says he will raise with the president and revert back by this Wednesday.

On arrival in Tangalle I meet all the coalition partners in the area and get up to date with what is happening. I arrange to add an additional school to their list, a local Montessori school which my 2 nieces have adopted. I then go to a fishing village where only 10 days ago we had been supplying food packs too. I discuss how we can start mending their boats and agree to return on Tuesday with 2 engineers to see if we can make all the repairs on site.

I return to Galle to have dinner with some friends on an inland cinnamon estate. It is great to see a place which is completely normal. She is also in the hotel business and her beach property was completely ruined. We swap destruction stories.... finishing with the often quoted Sri Lankan one liner "what to do?" (Which is always accompanied with a great deal of head wobbling)

I arrive at Colombo airport at 0545 hrs, after a quick shower I head down to Bentota to meet one of our coalition partners. They are having funding difficulties and I arrange to advance them money, you can read what they are doing on www.rebuildingsrilanka.org.uk . We swap ideas and solutions to problems.

I then go onto Hikkaduwa to meet a new coalition partner who is concentrating at the moment on building boats. We swap possible boat manufacturers but agree the best solution is to make our own moulds for boats and make the boats on site. 

As I go down the coast road one still sees complete carnage although I am very impressed with the speed of the road clearance. The railway track, which follows the coast road, is in a complete mess with long stretches of track completely torn up. I can understand that the 1000 or more passengers of the Galle Express never stood a chance.

I arrive in Weligama to see how the repair project for the fishermen is proceeding...all is fine except for 6 hooligans who have deliberately smashed glass bottles on a stretch of beach we had just cleaned to enable the villagers to resume their beach cricket games. These hooligans are complaining we are not working fast enough! I see little work being generated by them...however these people are a minority. Frustrating!

In the evening I have a small dinner party for an MP to discuss our latest projects and to obtain his views on them. My partners Pierre Pringiers, Thomas Gerbracht and other coalition partners, also join me.

I spend the whole day travelling back to Sri Lanka from London with an 8 hour stopover in Dubai that enables me to answer hundreds of emails. Mean while in Sri Lanka the teams are working on repairing outboard engines, patching up boats and collecting data on schools for our Adopt a school program.

An account from Geoffrey Dobbs, founder of Adopt Sri Lanka and Chairman of The Taprobane Trust PVT.

My flight doesn't leave London for Colombo until the evening so I spend the day connecting with people who have either helped the appeal or who want to help.

My first meeting is with Children in Crisis, the  UK based charity who are providing the conduit through which UK residents can send money and receive tax relief. In addition, for every pound donated the UK government donate a further 30%.

We have raised about GBP30,000 in the UK to date. Adopt Sri Lanka are very grateful to Children in Crisis for helping us. For those wanting more information on their works please see www.childrenincrisis.org.uk.

My next meeting is with the Monsoon Accessorise group, a chain of 300 shops selling clothing and accessories. Their staff and customers are raising USD100,000 which has been underwritten by the owner Peter Simon. They have specified that they would like their donation to go to children affected by the Tsunami.

My next meeting is then with Alan Glanville, one of the most knowledgeable authorities on the Sri Lankan fishing industry in Europe . He gives me a crash course of fishing trends and boat building in Sri Lanka over the last 25 years - a very useful meeting.

My last meeting of the day is with a fund manager who heard an interview I had done on the radio and as a result wanted to contribute USD25,000. The generosity of everyone is overwhelming.

Finally on my way to the airport I call in on a fundraising drinks party given by an old friend of mine whose family were at Arugam Bay at the time of the Tsunami. Incredibly, amid such destruction the whole family of 10 survived. Their survival story can be read below. They have just been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey.

Today we launched a major fundraising opportunity " Operation fish and ships".

The objective Operation Fish and ships is to get the fishing industry back on its feet in Sri Lanka as quickly as possible. Individuals, organisations or groups can donate money to buy a fishing boat, which will be given to a local Sri Lankan fishing cooperative to assist rebuilding their businesses. (refer to the Projects Underway and Press pages for details)

Geoffrey Dobbs, founder of Adopstrilanka.com and Chairman of Taprobane Trust PVT Ltd, flew to London to launch the initiative in the House of Commons after the Prime Ministers question time. The launch was attended by The Rt Hon Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, The Rt Hon Michael Ancram, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr Ben Bradshaw, Minister of Fisheries, Gareth Thomas, Overseas Development Minister, David Currie MP a former Fisheries Minister, The Sri Lankan high commissioner his Excellency Faisz Musthapha PC, and by Anthony Steen MP whose constituency has the largest fishing fleet in Britain, based in Brixham, Devon. The fishing community of Brixham pledge to buy a fishing trawler as does Tesco Stores a major UK purchaser of Sri Lankan fish.

 In Colombo the Smbassadors and High Commissioners of the Diplomatic Community attended a sunset sushi cocktail party at the Galle Face Hotel to show their support for the fishermen of Sri Lanka.

Both events were well attended by the media and we expect to receive substantial donations as a result.

For individuals, organizations or groups wishing to adopt a fishing boat refer to our Projects Underway page for costs and further details.

Back in London, we hold a meeting with the Editor of Conde Nast Traveller to discuss a major fundraising event they are launching for the travel industry in England on 2 nd March 2005. Details of this event can be seen on the Donations page under Fundraising.

At the fundraising event, Conde Nast will be holding an auction with some items on offer being 6 days for 10 people on Taprobane Island (refer to www.taprobaneisland.com ) and a hot air balloon flight for 14 over Sri Lanka's Cultural Triangle together with accommodation in the nearby Kandalalama hotel. (refer to www.srilankainstyle.com )

As we drove up to Galle from Weligama, one can begin to notice a definite change, for the positive, in the attitude of local people mainly due to the now increasing numbers of foreign military in the area. In the Weligama are area alone we have now seen Bangledeshi, American, Belgium, Austrian and German troops, in fact one of our own hotels in Galle has been taken over as an R and R day centre for Austrian troops. As from Saturday 12 troops will come each day to relax around the pool and croquet lawn.

It is very interesting to observe how each country tackles the problem. It was very fortunate that due to construction of a new superhighway approximately 6 km inland from the coastline and stretching from Colombo to Matara, all these machines have now been diverted to the reconstruction effort.

We are slowly formulating our mission. We think the macro projects will be well covered by the government and the established NGO's, so organizations like AdoptSriLanka will concentrate very much on the micro picture helping villages; small businesses and families rebuild their lives. We are now at a stage where we need to have more precise information to enable us to focus in on the real micro problems facing villages. We now have an increasing team of volunteers to help us and we are making a systematic survey of villages from Tangalle to Galle to assess their needs for the long term. We are also liaising very closely with members of the coalition made up of other organisations similar to ours that have sprung up in other areas. Wherever possible we are listing these on our website and we have no problems if you would prefer to support these efforts.

As from next Monday we will be posting weekly updates from each coalitions projects to enable you to grasp a complete picture of the entire coastal area.

Later in the day we drive up to Colombo to order more supplies and to liaise with a group in Bentota for whom we have just purchased latrines. After 2 weeks in the disaster it seems a little strange being in Colombo where life is completely normal.

The clean up operation efforts along the coastline are beginning to show enormously. It is now looking a lot better and so much has been achieved within the past two weeks.

Up early to get down to Tangalle to supervise the start of the school term. We have managed to tidy up 3 schools with one other school combined into one of the prepared schools making it possible for a total of 2300 pupils to return to school in the Tangalle area.

Loadstar in Weligama are doing the same thing. We were presented with leaves from the Bo tree (under which the Lord Buddha sought enlightenment) a traditional form of thanks in Sri Lanka. We distributed the school books to all children. It was a very touching scene. We are continually thinking about how we can roll this programme out to all schools in Sri Lanka. On the way back to Galle, we see 40 troops from Bangladesh based in Weligama. We stop and ask them if they are all right, to which they cheerfully reply "oh yes we have floods, cyclones and disasters of all sorts every year in our country. Here you only have them every thousand years!" - good to see that a sense of humour is being kept amongst all.

Continuing on the way back to Galle we see a huge crowd on the beach at Koggala. We stop to see what is happening and see the US marines landing in amphibious craft. The scene was like something out of a movie. Incredibly well organised! We talk to one of the marines from Alaska who told us "we were on our way to Iraq but were diverted here." For all there, it was rather bewildering seeing so many friendly faces but also a great relief for the locals to see such international support in their area. On arriving in Galle, we attended a coordinating meeting of our coalition group of partners. (Refer to the About US page for more details on the coalition) We exchange experiences, ideas and suggest ways of overcoming problems.

We discuss the statistics that are emerging - prior to 26 th December Sri Lanka already had one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Since the 26 th December the suicide rate is soaring as people (predominantly Buddhists) take their lives wanting to go to their next life and be with their loved ones that they lost. One of our key projects is counselling which we are currently sourcing trauma counsellors as well as interpreters to assist with this enormous task of counselling and hopefully we can assist this rate from escalating any more.

Operation School Pen
Most of today was spent in a frantic rush to open as many schools as possible (the school term begins 10th January) and in finding school books to hand out at short notice. We managed to find a shop in Matara (160 km south of Colombo) and bought 5000 books and school pens, which we then prepared into parcels for individual packets for children. We also employed labourers to clean up and paint schools. At the moment Adoptsrilanka.com are operating in the Tangalle area (195 km south of Colombo) and one of our founding companies, Loadstar (PVT) Ltd are doing the same thing in Weligama.

Operation Home Delivery
We are continuing with our cooked food programme but find this is beginning to wind down as the home delivery service is becoming more popular with the village people wanting to return to familiar homes.

Operation Fishing
We visited the harbour at Merissa where we have set up a workshop to enable fishermen to clean their outboard motors. We have mended 15 motors and also lifted 5 trawlers from the sea wall and relaunched them. This is proving a great success and the fishermen are full of their stories of meeting the President of Sri Lanka and her cabinet. We have arranged to invite Australian cricketer, Shane Warne, to come to Sri Lanka to eat fish to support the Sri Lankan fishing industry, lets see what happens. We got together with our partnering company CEO, Pierre Pringiers of Loadstar, who was with an advance group from the Belgium Army who are sending 90 troops to the area in the next week.

Still not much sign of any other NGO's in the area yet except for a few UN aid vehicles a few hours prior to Koffi Anan's arrival. On a personal note, we visited one of our villas, The Beach House in Tangalle, only to find that a puppy has adopted the house as his home, all be it that there is nothing left in the house. The staff at the villa have adopted him and named him Tsunami.

The day began with some anxiety as rumours had it another tsunami would strike...thankfully it didn't.

Today, we have today concentrated on the Tangalle area where it appears that aid does not yet seem to be reaching. We again delivered food rations to 2 camps and then concentrated on getting schools ready as the school term begins on Monday 10 January and we are very anxious to see children returning as soon as possible. We have purchased 10,000 school books and pens and have initiated a clean up programme in 4 more schools (in addition to the schools in Weligama). We have just asked for basic repairs and basic repainting as we are still not sure what the government policy will be on rebuilding schools in the future and we do not want to put donations immediately where it maybe a waste in the long term.

Koffi Anan came to the southern coast today to see things at first hand.

We are not sure what he did as we just saw some UNICEF tents being hastily errected before his arrival. To be perfectly honest with you, it appears that not much NGO aid seems to be in the south yet, however hopefully it will be here soon. We will keep you updated.

We have decided to launch "Operation Fish and Ships".

If any individual or group would like to adopt a fishing boat please e mail us at info@adoptsrilanka.com . We are currently obtaining the full costs of buying and equipping a catamaran or trawler. Donors will have the name of their choice painted on the bow of any boat they wish to adopt.

Work continues in Weligama and we will update you in more detail tomorrow.

Our project of providing dry rations in the village of Sudawella appears to be working and we are building up a respect with all in the village, it is a joy to see!

Thank you for supporting us and apologies if we are not replying to your e mails instantly.

We have a lot to do at present as the disaster is changing from one of providing humanitarian aid to thinking about rebuilding and rehabilitating. We want to make sure that all your donations are well spent in the immediate and the long term. The most important thing is ensuring that everything we do is effective.

We have now begun to operate in the Tangalle area with the following projects: 

1.Operation home delivery
 As a result of yesterday visits to the villages of Beliwatte and Sudawella (near Kottogoda at the 175 km mark from Colombo) we found out that many villagers do not want to go to central camps preferring to stay near their homes, hence it is difficult to supply these groups with pre-cooked meals. They also rejected a suggestion that they cook communally saying that at night they still go into the hinterland as they are still scared there may be another wave. (rumour has been going round that there will be another wave on 8th January 2005) Accordingly we decided to issue rations to families to last them for 3 days and which they could cook themselves.

 The rations consist of: 

• 2 tins fish
• 2 kgs rice
• 1 kg dahl
• 1 kg sugar
• In addition to this, we have supplied those families with children under 12 years of age with: 
• Milk powder or liquid milk
• 1 tin organic pineapple chunks or fruit cocktail
• Fruit bars

We are also currently supplying bottled water to all families however will more than likely stop doing this in a few days as water supplies return to normal. 
We explained to them that if there was any trouble within the camp and between families we would not return. We were very pleasantly surprised to see that everybody lined up in an orderly fashion compared to chaotic scenes from other villages.
The village list had 267 families on it and we had only brought 100, so we are returning early tomorrow morning with a further 167 family packs  (approx. 1600 people)
We then went to a new camp which has just been set up and which is housing approx 300 people (including 75 children) from the fishing communities of Mahawella. These people were being treated by 10 German para medics and also by a group of young Americans from WACO under the name of the International Service Partner. They were doing a great job looking after the kids but did not have any funds to purchase supplies of any sort. We have therefore initially agreed to give them rations for 2 days which will consist of

• 160kgs rice
• 50 kgs dahl
• 30 kgs onions
• 70 tins fish
• 50 kgs sugar

2. Operation School Pen
The new term starts on 10th January (Monday) and we would like to see as many kids back to school as possible. We are currently trying to arrange for 5000 kids to do so in the Tangalle area and are currently working out the logistics of it. We will report on this tomorrow.

We are continuing our work in the Weligma/Merissa areas.

A very satisfying day!