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Continued support needed for JRS' work in Sri Lanka17 June 2009 JRS is providing emergency care to almost 300,000 Sri Lankans displaced by recent fighting in the country. With thousands of these people injured and in need of urgent medical attention, JRS is seeking basic medical supplies as well as food, clean water, and temporary shelter for those living in camps. Besides this critical assistance, JRS is also facilitating the education of children, helping to reunite families separated by the violence, and working towards the resettlement of these people. If you would like to support the work of JRS in Sri Lanka, please follow the steps below. We appreciate any effort you can make to help us with this initiative. Donate by telephone: Please call our office on 02 9356 3888 to arrange a donation by credit card. We also accept direct deposit. Please indicate that you would like these funds to go to the work of JRS in Sri Lanka. Donate by mail: Donations can be sent by cheque to JRS, P.O. Box 522, Kings Cross, NSW, 1340. Please enclose a note indicating that you would like these funds to go to the work of JRS in Sri Lanka. The recent fighting in Sri Lanka has caused the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, giving rise to yet another humanitarian crisis. The Jesuits in Sri Lanka are responding to the massive emergency needs in the country particularly through the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). Over 290,000 people are currently living in camps in the northern part of the country, including 155,000 in the huge Manik Farm complex in Vavuniya. Of these, about 13,000 are injured and need medical attention. The urgent need is for temporary shelter, food, clean water and basic medical supplies in the camps in Vavuniya and also in Mannar and Jaffna. Since January 2009, JRS has been working hard day and night among these internally displaced people, providing and distributing cooked food, dry rations, non-food items and attending to the sick in the hospitals at Mannar, Poovarasakulam, Vavuniya and Trincomalee. JRS is also running preschools at Manik Farm Zone 1 and supplying the needed uniforms, bags, shoes, exercise books and other students' stationary items to school age children in Manick farms Zone 1 and 2. JRS is also rendering assistance to families who are now scattered in different camps and helping reunite family members. JRS volunteers are also visiting people and spending time with them to find out their concerns and provide personal support. JRS is not only working to meet the immediate needs of the displaced population, but is committed to assist them to return and rebuild their homes, as well as to work towards long term solutions which will see a just peace for all Sri Lankans. We ask for your prayers for all those who have died in this conflict, for the families they have left behind, the injured and other survivors who must now work to rebuild their lives. JRS lost one of its staff members with the death of Fr Mariampillai Sarajeevan, a diocesan priest of the Jaffna diocese, who was the coordinator for Jesuit Refugee Service in Kilinochi, Sri Lanka. He had been working in the 'no fire' zone of Vanni and died of a heart attack in Vavuniya hospital. We ask for your prayers for him, his family and for all the Jesuits, workers and volunteers from all the agencies and local partners who are assisting in this humanitarian emergency. If you would like to support the work JRS in Sri Lanka, please follow the steps below. We appreciate any effort you can make to help us with this initiative. Donate by telephone Donate by mail |
