Handmade Scarves
                                             "...with love in every stitch"

Sarvodaya/Tsunami Relief Fund-Raiser

8 Mar 2008
Colours By Chris has sent an additional $500 to Sarvodaya, USA, bringing our total contribution to $3800. Thank you to everyone who purchased scarves from our Winter 2008 selection. Your contributions are greatly appreciated and are put to wonderful use in Sri Lanka.

Visit www.sarvodayausa.org to read more and to donate online now.

See you next season,
With love, chris xo

14 Oct 2007
Colours By Chris has sent an additional $150 to Sarvodaya, USA, bringing our total contribution to $3300. As usual, the Spring and Summer months have been very quiet. Hopefully as the cold weather arrives this Fall and Winter you'll be needing new scarves and new designs to complement your 2008 wardrobe.

Visit our Winter collections on the website and call soon - thank you!

Or visit www.sarvodayausa.org to read more and to donate online now.

With love, chris xo

25 Jan 2007
This month, thanks to initial sales of the new mohair mufflers, Colours By Chris has sent $150 to Sarvodaya, bringing the total contributed to $3150.
Here is an update on how your contributions are being put to good use in Sri Lanka:

On Sunday afternoon December 26, 2004, Harith Priyasath, 34, was inside the hotel where he worked. Swept into the sea, he clung to life on a boat that was flipped upside down. Fortunately, the next wave brought him to the shore. He ran to his home, collected his wife and three children and they all escaped to higher ground. Their house was flattened. After languishing in a temporary shelter for more than a year, they moved to a new house in Lagoswatta, a model eco-village built by Sarvodaya. In Kalutara district of Sri Lanka, Lagoswatta is now home to 55 families who survived the tsunami. It features eco-friendly houses, a multi-purpose community center, and a playground. Each house is equipped with solar panels for electricity and a recycling facility.

Sarvodaya’s activities are guided by building sustainable and peaceful societies. Through projects like the model eco-village the Movement has demonstrated that a new Sri Lanka of peace and harmony is possible. Thousands of Sarvodaya villages are geared towards establishing a poverty-free society that embodies the supreme human values – metta, karuna, muditha, and uppekkha – Loving Kindness, Compassion, Altruistic Joy and Equanimity.

More than two years after the tsunami, Sarvodaya’s work is still heavily concentrated on rehabilitation and reconstruction. Almost 100 different projects in 12 priority areas are still underway. More than 700 houses were built in the past year. Most of them are near completion.

Thousands of children lost their parents to the disaster. Sarvodaya Suwasetha is supporting 60 of them so far with a scholarship program. Every month Suwasetha provides $15 to each child. While $5 goes to a savings account that can be withdrawn when the child reaches the age of 18, the rest of the money supports education. Often families struggling to survive have no choice but to use this money for food and living expenses. It’s all they have. Every month Suwasetha field staff visit the children. They take time to chat, making sure that the money is being deposited properly and children are receiving good care in their adoptive families. Suwasetha plans to support these children until they reach 18. When university students from the United Kingdom recently committed to provide similar support to more than 50 children in one community, it is said that the entire village wept with gratitude. The math is simple: $25 per month; $15 to the child and $10 for emergencies, outreach workers and other support. $300 per year.

Several international organizations have reduced their operations and pulled out their international staff. Sarvodaya remains as one of the very few organizations that has a grassroots network and local capacity to operate in such difficult circumstances.

Visit www.sarvodayausa.org to read more and to donate online now.

10 Dec 2006
Over the past ten months, Colours By Chris has contributed an additional $500 to Sarvodaya, USA, bringing the total to $3000.
All proceeds from scarf sales continue to be sent directly to Sarvodaya,USA.
I thank you for your orders and contributions ... love, chris xo

Sarvodaya's relief efforts in Sri Lanka are even more critically needed today as the destruction of war escalates and adds to the destruction of the Tsunami. Shisir Khanal, Managing Director of Sarvodaya USA writes in his letter today,
"I received an email from Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne, Executive Director of Sarvodaya Sri Lanka, requesting urgent humanitarian support for people displaced by the war in Sri Lanka. About 700 people including 48 children who just fled their homes as the conflict escalated in Seruwill area, eastern Sri Lanka, need immediate assistance. They need basic supplies as infant milk powder, medicines, dry rations, tents and sleeping mats."

16 Feb 2006
"Colours by Chris" has contributed $2500 to Sarvodaya, USA during our year-long fund-raising effort. The money aids their on-going Tsunami relief efforts in Sri Lanka - building 1200 new homes, providing pre-schools, and re-establishing people's livelihoods - check out www.sarvodaya.org. This past year we have been supporters of Sarvodaya alongside thousands of others, including the Rudolf Steiner Foundation, and Wal-Mart.

The remaining dozen scarves were taken to Rosie's Place - a Boston shelter for homeless women.

Many heartfelt thanks to all of you who have participated so generously in this fund-raising venture.

With love, chris xo

24 Jan 2006
From the Sarvodaya web site:
"Sarvodaya is a Sri Lankan organization developed around a set of coherent philosophical tenets drawn from Buddhism and Gandhian thought. It has been operational for almost 50 years. Today Sarvodaya is Sri Lanka’s largest and most broadly embedded people’s organization, with a network covering 15,000 villages, 34 district offices, over 100,000 youth, and the country’s largest micro-credit organization with a cumulative loan portfolio of over one billion Sri Lankan Rupees."  

You can see Sarvodaya's strategy for tsunami relief at http://www.sarvodaya.org/tsunami/tsunami-to-deshodaya/  

29 Dec 2004
Arthur C. Clarke who lives in Sri Lanka wrote:
"...  consider supporting Sarvodaya, the largest development charity in Sri Lanka, which has a 45-year track record in reaching out and helping the poorest of the poor. Sarvodaya has mounted a well organised, countrywide relief effort using their countrywide network of offices and volunteers who work in all parts of the country, well above ethnic and other divisions"
    http://www.clarkefoundation.org/

29 Dec 2004
Chris Strutt wrote:
"Of the countries around the Indian Ocean most impacted by the recent Tsunami, Sri Lanka is the smallest and least able to draw on internal resources. It is a small island already struggling with poverty and civil war. It is also the country of my origin. The grief I feel for the people of the region - Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia and all the others - knows no bounds.

This morning I heard about the Sarvodaya movement - a direct, grass-roots, long-term, sustainable ways to help the people of Sri Lanka; founded by Dr. A.T. Ariatne in 1958 - he was awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize in 1996. Our help is going to be needed for months and months and months into the future.  Long after the immediate and very generous international aid has been exhausted, the need for assistance will continue. While the international donor organizations like UNICEF, OXFAM and the Red Cross are providing much-needed material assistance, they rely on organizations like Sarvodaya to actually distribute this aid to the people who need it. And, unlike some regional organizations, it is so important to me that Sarvodaya delivers assistance in all communities, regardless of race, religion or political affiliation - including Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, and Christian communities."