Kayon Fall 2005: Tsunami Relief Effort 7 artists donated work which has been printed on tee shirts in limited edition of 36 prints per design. The silk label for each shirt is hand numbered and signed by the artists. $36 for each shirt sold will be directly contributed to: Sri Yasodara Relief Fund/Art Refuge Orphanage of Sri Lanka. If you would like to purchase a shirt, please contact us

TSUNAMI TIMES
SPONSOR AN ORPHAN: BUDDHIKA SUSANTHA CHAMALI

To make a donation to our featured charity, buy a shirt or visit the Sri Yasodara Relief Fund/Art Refuge Orphanage @ www.fotwa.org

Yasodara Shanti Nikethanaya Hostel in Weligama is the newest addition to the Sri Yasodara Orphanage in Sri Lanka. While the Sri Yasodara Orphanage is a home for girls who have lost their parents to the country's bitter civil war, or the extreme poverty it has created, the Yasodara Shanti Nikethanaya Hostel was formed specifically for children who lost their parents to the recent tsunami. Both orphanages are run by Loku Maniyo, a Buddhist nun, who offers love and shelter to over 80 girls from mixed backgrounds. The homes set a gentle and powerful example of the possilibity of peaceful coexistence. Sri Yasodara is committed to providing the best possible education publicly available to the girls. Meeting basic needs, however, such as providing clean food and lodging, is no small daily task. Dormitories are overcrowded and five nuns work late hours helping the girls aged three to eighteen.

FOTWA brought Art Refuge (an art program originally started in for Tibetan children) to the orphanage first in 1999. The girls responded enthusiastically and made paintings that were very different from the Tibetan images of mountains and yaks. In addition to painting, the girls study dance and music after school.

Loku Maniyo, who founded the home in 1986, receives no consistent financial support; every day is a struggle to provide food, transport to school, clothing, electricity and clean water. "If one day these children gather the strength to stand on their own feet I show them that it is important to help other children who are helpless like they have been. If they have two pencils I teach them to give away one, feel the sorrow of another like their own, and remembering the path they have come on, strive to bring light into others' lives." (text from www.fotwa.org)

"...Each child's art is worthy and tells a story of what they know, have seen and have lived through-often including abuse, torture, death of loved ones, hunger, and hardships we have trouble even imagining.

All around the world there are refugees of war and oppression, children who have lost their families, who are alone in the world and whose chances of survival, much less individually fulfilled lives, are very slim. The Art Refuge program is modeling a successful way of dealing with this problem. The intention to relieve the suffering of the world begins with one step, one person, one child's life."

– Cynthia Jurs, Open Way Sangha