Update on JUly 15, 2005

On july 10th, the boat/net for fishermen were handed over in chennai. A few photos of the handover function has been added to this blog. On 10th itself, the boat was put to use for fishing purposes. The fishermen were extremely pleased and relieved to recieve their livelihood back after 6 months. They even took a few volunteers out to the sea on the boat for a ride :).

Though there were a few months delay due to (i) some confusion about the government buying boats for fishermen and vedics did not want to duplicate efforts, and (ii) boat ordering/building time of around 2.5 months, we are happy that we have put our donors money to good use. This will help in the livelihood of many families.

We will be remiss if we did not mention the good organization shown by the youth in the colony. They organized all efforts in the colony, and were in constant touch with vedics, providing local input. For example, one of the ideas that we were considering was to build a few houses (however many we can build, with the funds we collect) so that atleast a few families will have their shelter back - we had an assumption that other agencies will do similr work for other houses; but this committee of youth provided input saying that things are likely to take time to build, and if we end up building only a few houses, it will cause issues in the colony between those who have houses rebuilt, and those who don't have. At this trying time, they did not want to create any room for disunity within the colony. So, they suggested that we strongly reconsider the plan, and we did. They organized the colony efforts around distribution of all Vedics help, and for the boat, they will organize rotating shifts so that people from many families will get to earn their livelihood, even though it is only one boat.

In fact, when the boat help did not reach them even in March, they got the local MLA's help in certifying that they need the boat (got a letter), which Vedics confirmed with the local inspector and then proceeded. This level of good organization is a strong motivator for all Vedics volunteers in the field. You can see the local fisherman colony organizers in one of the photos.

A pending item in the colony is the construction of the Srinivasa Perumal sannadhi, which will be done over the next month. The kumbhabhishekam for the whole temple they have is scheduled for late August, and they will have a new Srinivasa Perumal Sannadhi in the temple, thanks to our donors. This will be of great help, as the local people can conduct their Saturday worship in the area, without going far. We will update this blog as more details become availabe.

Once again, we would like to thank our donors for making a difference.

adiyEn rAmanuja dAsan,
varadhan
(on behalf of Vedics).