Upcoming 10 Year Tsunami Commemoration

Although it was founded five years prior to the Tsunami, the impact of the events of Boxing Day 2004 have been so great that now, the idea of post-tsunami redevelopment has become intrinsically linked to the Foundation of Goodness.

At 9 am on the 26th of December, which fell on a Poya Day in 2004, Founder/ Chief Trustee Kushil Gunasekera and the FoG staff were gathered at the Lahiru Villa in Seenigama to distribute scholarships to students. At that point, the Foundation was a humble organization conducting IT and English classes for regional kids, sports training, medical clinics, village welfare projects and distributing Essential School Supply Packs. In half an hour, everything changed.

“I ran for safety with the children who were present for the scholarship donation,” says Kushil, “wading through water, I will never forget the terrible sights I saw along the way. The waves crashed everything to ruin, debris and rubble.”

But what set Kushil apart from so many others was his determination to never give up in the face of such daunting odds. “Amidst the great feeling of hopelessness in the face of such great adversity I was determined to stay positive and do the best I could to make sure that we overcame what seemed at the time to be an insurmountable tragedy though turning this set back in to a blessing by harnessing the waves of compassion that eventually overpowered the waves of destruction owing to the way we were focused and had a plan with a vision engaging the heart to execute systematically with discipline to reach that goal step by step.”

The Lahiru Villa served as an emergency relief camp immediately after the tsunami, and later with support from the Marylebone Cricket Club, Kushil donated his villa to the Foundation, to have the premises develop in to the MCC Centre of Excellence. The Seenigama Sports Academy with the Bryan Adams Pool Complex and the Surrey Oval, the Sri Sumangala MCC Lords Grounds and three Village heartbeat Projects in Udumulla, Rathgama and most recently in Moneragala also sprang up as the Foundation of Goodness kept on expanding its activities as the years flew by. In 2011, FoG activities expanded all the way to Sri Lanka’s post war North and East, with uninterrupted visits happening every month from January 2011 to present day.

The Foundation of Goodness has now served over 220,000 beneficiaries, island wide, through its 30 productive activity sectors operating across 50+ villages.

It has come a long way from the rubble strewn village and villa ten years ago, and it gives us great strength to know we have been able to reach out to so many lives, far beyond the humble expectations we had at the start.

This December, we will commemorate 10 years since the Indian Ocean Tsunami took the lives of over 230,000 people from 14 countries, observing not just the lives lost, but how those left behind picked up the pieces of their lives and built a future assisted by the out pouring of help from the entire international community. The Foundation of Goodness will look back on ten years of development at the village of Seenigama on the 26th of December 2014 from the premises of the Seenigama Temple where all the villages fled to on that fateful day on ’04 to escape the fury of the waves.

We invite all supporters, well-wishers, donors, staff and volunteers to join us on the day as we pay tribute to all who helped us overcome this tragedy, remember those we lost, and salute those who rebuilt their lives from destruction.

24th December 2014