Water is essential to sustain life. When we do
not have clean drinking water
our lives are at risk. Especially when the tsunami
disaster happened many clean
drinking water facilities ware polluted and destroyed.
To prevent disease and
or the health and well being of the costal communities
we need to pay special
attention in restoring the drinking water facilities.
I have visited many water wells and to areas where
there is a problem with
drinking water. Although military trucks and water
management board trucks
distribute water daily to most of the places some
times it is not enough or not
delivered in time. I have met some people who have
to walk about a mile to get
drinking water or bathing water. I have heard many
complain from people in some areas who have problems
of getting clean water.
On February 2nd, we started out at 4am and traveled
across the region to Ampara and Kalmunai where our
Triple Gem refugee camp is located. We spent three
very busy days at our camp and the other camps in
the surrounding area. The first water pump that
we donated to Kalmune was installed and we saw it
in full operation. A water specialist and techinician
form a company in Colombo traveled with us to Kalmunai
to install two more of the vitally needed water
purifying systems in the camps.They returned to
Colombo with water samples from several poluted
wells to tested.
Finally, we have added our efforts to the efforts
of the government and other
non-governmental organization that are trying to
solve many problems after
tsunami. We will continue our efforts to set up
and distribution of water
purification systems. I traveled three days with
a team of water specialists
from the Czech Republic and I am constantly in touch
with them. They have done the initial research and
are going back to the Czech Republic with water
samples. They have prepared a report of water assessment
and I will be
presenting it to the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
during our next meeting
together.
Update: Since setting up drinking water facilities
in tsunami effected areas
and proper distribution of water is a long-term
project the Czech team of
specialist made a detailed proposal to the prime
minister of Sri Lanka. I was
happy to present the report to the office of the
prime minister. On the 11th
February I received a request letter from the Prime
minister of Sri Lanka to
the Prime minister of Czech Republic and traveled
to Prague, Czech Republic
with the letter. As a result of our efforts the
water purification systems are
already been prepared to be shipped to Sri Lanka.
The projects will provide the
facilities to Ampara District and Hambantota district
of Sri Lanka.
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