There is a light in all of us…we just need to share it. This is the belief of Sarvodaya and its Women’s Movement; hence a nationwide project named ‘In Loving Memory’ will commemorate the first year anniversary of the tsunami.

The project aims to create a ring of light around the entire coastline of Sri Lanka at 7pm on 26 December 2005 and so unite all citizens, NGO’s and overseas visitors in commemorating the loss of thirty five thousand lives in the tsunami. It is an event conceived to embrace all religious and ethnic beliefs.

A minimum of forty thousand luminary lanterns in respect of each life lost will be handmade by the women survivors in the coastal villages supported by Sarvodaya Women’s Movement and distributed free of charge to the bereaved. The project is compatible with the Movement’s urgency to provide psycho social support as well as empower Tsunami affected women through skills development and livelihood support.

The Post-Tsunami Community Voice was set up with the funding of the World Bank to give voice to the views of the community on the Tsunami devastation and reconstruction and on economic, governance, and social accountability of the community.

Rural Community Telecentre project was set up with collaboration between Microsoft and Sarvodaya to create rural empowerment by bringing the benefits of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to more villages in the island.

On October 3rd, Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya was awarded the Habitat Scroll of Honor award, the UN’s highest prize in the field of human settlement and shelter. The award is granted annually by the United Nations Human Settlement Program and Sarvodaya was among eight recipients for the year 2005.Sarvodaya was recognized for its development work in villages with particular regard to its massive post-Tsunami reconstruction work.

In a ceremony held in Jakarta, Indonesia to mark World Habitat Day, Mrs. Udani Mendis, the Acting Executive Director, and Mr. Saman Algoda, the Finance Director, received the award on behalf of the organization. In a speech at the ceremony, Mrs. Mendis described Sarvodaya’s work with special emphasis on the movement’s focus on eradicating poverty through social, economic, and technological empowerment of people. She described how the organization had been working for almost fifty years in this endeavor of “sarvodaya” or “awakening of all” and had thus far reached almost 15,000 villages throughout the island.

Americans now have a new resource for information about the activities relating to Sarvodaya in the U.S. and around the world. Now that we’ve have had some time to recover from the challenges of crisis relief, our small group of volunteers and staff have created…