Rustington school helps tsunami victims

A collection organised by staff at the school in January raised more than 300, which was given to the Arun Community Church, working closely with Links Inter-national to help their efforts in Chennai, formerly Madras, a huge city of eight million people, on India's east coast.

This generosity was rewarded when husband and wife team of Jeyakaren and Kavitha Emmanuel, who run a church in Chennai, joined Richard Hubbard from the community church in two special assemblies at the school to show pupils the result of their positive work.

Arun Community Church has close links with the Power House church in a village on the outskirts of Chennai.

The money given by the school was sufficient to build a community training centre there to help people of all ages, regardless of their religious backgrounds.

The focus of the centre, which is made out of all natural materials and can seat 100 people, is to provide the training to develop the necessary skills needed to earn a living in new jobs, especially the many fishermen who lost their boats and livelihoods in the disaster.

Computer courses and tailoring courses are among those available and rickshaws can be used to earn money as taxis and delivery vehicles.

The centre is also used by local children who go there to play, be read stories and attend some lessons.

Richard Hubbard, one of the leaders of the Arun Community Church, travelled to India soon after the disaster to help with the relief work.

He said: "There's still a long way to go because the government has moved all the people affected to temporary shelters inland, about five miles from the sea.

"As they are no longer near the sea, many of these people have lost their livelihoods and cannot find other work."

Jeyakaren said that for the past 20 years or so, the Indian government had been looking at ways of dismantling the small-scale local fishing industry, which brings little revenue to the government and takes up valuable land, in favour of industrial trawling methods by large companies.

"The Indian government seems to be using the tsunami as an excuse to move the fishing community out of the seaside land so that they can use it for real-estate, which is worth more money," he said.

Even some houses that survived the tsunami have been demolished to, allegedly, make way for building work, which would probably centre on attracting more tourists to India's stunning coastlines.

Whatever the motives, the way of life along India's east coast has changed dramatically as a result and Jeyakaren and Kavitha's response has been to help, in a practical way, those who need it most rather than taking a political stance against the government.

The kind donations from Rustington County Primary School have gone a long way to helping that relief work, giving people a chance to re-build their lives in the wake of the disaster.

Richard said that fund-raising here means a lot more when the money is taken abroad. He said: "A pound goes a long way in India, where it is worth about 80 rupees.

"Whereas a loaf of bread would cost around 80 pence in England, in India it costs only eight rupees, equivalent to about 10 pence. So every pound raised over here can do a lot to help over there."