Jinasena Training & Rehabilitation Trust

On December 26th 2004 a devastating Tsunami struck Sri Lanka destroying two-thirds of the country's coastal area. Thousands of people lost their lives and property worth billions of rupees was destroyed. Over a million people lost their homes and were forced to live in temporary camps and shelters, unable to go back to their old lifestyle having lost everything they owned. Many children were left without parents and many parents sadly lost their children to the killer tidal wave. Following the aftermath of the Tsunami, the Jinasena family, together with some of their close relatives and business associates formed the Jinasena Tsunami Rehabilitation Trust (JTRT) in March 2005, with the main aim of providing assistance for the immediate needs of those affected by the Tsunami and also with the long term vision of rebuilding villages and towns and helping people resettle. Two other special purpose funds, Solideal Loadstar Rehabilitation Trust (SLRT) and Jinasena Limited Disaster Relief Fund, were also established owing to the formidable nature and multiplicity of the tasks given the scenario. The immediate need of the affected families following the Tsunami was for clean drinking water and food. Therefore the first project initiated by JTRT was to provide relief assistance, providing food and the cleaning of drinking water wells. Two drinking water supply schemes with storage tanks were also initiated by the Trust at refugee camps in Pothuwil and Arugam Bay. The subsequent floods in Ampara districts hampered the transportation of food, water and passengers. To overcome this major problem faced by the authorities a boat engine was donated to the Ampara STF camp. In the direction of long-term assistance, the Trust constructed over 20 new houses for those families who lost their homes and assisted in rebuilding partly damaged homes of those who were fortunate enough to have at least a damaged house. School equipment was provided to refugee camps to facilitate stop gap scho