One of the great raffle prizes for 24 November – Electric Storm

Flights now booked for next March for the final stage of my and Gill’s trek across Sri Lanka. £23,363 (77%) of my £30k target now reached. Now we can start planning the detail – Jaffna in the north of the Island to Trincomolee where Kiran and I completed Stage 2 earlier this year.

Whist I’ll be trekking my final stage with Gill, great friends Krystyna and Suzana will be coming to Sri Lanka during the same period, but instead of trekking, they’ll be volunteering their time and skills at the refuge in Kandy supporting the girls there.

New volunteers – Krystyna and Suzana

Suzana works as a psychologist and yoga teacher in Romania. She’s very much looking forward to helping the girls adapt to their struggles. She’ll work with them to identify their strengths to develop a deeper resilience. She’s currently designing creative activities and planning daily yoga and meditation sessions.

Krys is super creative and has remotely supported a weaving project at Women’s Development Centre (WDC) since just before Covid as well as helping to raise funds to buy 14 heddle looms for the refuge. She was booked to come out to Sri Lanka with me in March 2020 and we all know what happened to prevent this. We shipped the looms out during Covid and I took the remainder out last year. Krys will check in on the project, ensuring the girls have all they need. She’ll then do workshops introducing them to using colour in a coordinated and marketable way and teach them to explore and create new designs using the looms. The aim is to give the girls new skills whilst being a form of therapy and potentially providing them with beautiful items they can sell. Below is a link to one of my earlier weaving blogs with colourful pictures: http://www.marciatrekssrilanka.com/2021/02/09/looms-and-zooms-how-well-the-girls-at-the-refuge-have-learnt-to-weave/

Next Fundraising Event

On Friday 24th Nov 5pm – 9pm I’ll be holding another fundraiser event of pre-loved clothes. Many lovely items have been donated already but I’m welcoming more, especially winter clothes. Some fabulous art work by Helen Blizard will also be available on display and to buy, as well as a raffle with some exciting and experiential prizes. One of the prizes is a limited edition framed print by Helen named Electric Storm. www.Blizart.net Please put the date in your diary if not already and let me know if you have any items to donate so we can arrange drop off/collection.

Examples of some of Helen’s work for sale on 24th Nov

Keeping Kirimatiya connected . . .

Some of the funds raised earlier this year have now been spent on purchasing an upgraded laptop and desktop computer for Kirimatiya, a very remote Tamil village in a mid-central, old tea plantation. I’ve written a few blogs about this village over the past few years and if you’ve seen them you’ll know how important it is that they’re connected through internet to support the children’s education. Here’s a link to an earlier blog: Kirimetiya gets connected in more ways than one | Marcia Treks Sri Lanka

Further sponsorship – if you’d like to help me to help those in need in Sri Lanka, whilst being assured every penny will get to those who need it, then please donate by clicking on this link. Don’t forget if you’re a tax payer to declare gift aid when doing so which will increase your donation by 25% at no cost to you. Alternatively, if you know of anyone or any organisation who may have an interest in this cause please share this blog link with them. And, if you’d like to get involved in anyway please get in touch with me at marciasummers@hotmail.com

If you missed last month’s blog then here it is.