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Welcome to our latest news report of 2018. Again a year that has flown by to quickly! Together with you we look back on a successful and eventful 2018 and forward to 2019. • Looking back to 2018 We wish you a lot of reading pleasure! |
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Retrospect 2018
The year 2018 has been an eventful year in which we have been able to realize a lot, with, among others, your help and support, and with the financial support from Stichting ‘Een Helpende Hand’ (SEHH) and ‘Wilde Ganzen’. So we have been able to do a lot for the learning-work farm. The widows are busy working on the land, taking care of the animals, and following courses and training. Because it is such a big project, we are not ready yet. The terrain needs to be paved, because it is muddy in the rainy season. Click here for the collage.
Also we started with the expansion of the Youth Empowerment Center, because there is a huge need among the youth to build a healthy future in all respects. The community houses have been able to expand their activities. In addition, Anna's Home for Children finally got decent sanitation and other facilities, and we are in contact with them about building a new pre-school (kindergarten), where children are now being taught in a dilapidated hovel.
For the Havonos organization, the ever-growing, fine collaboration with SEHH has been a very important step towards a sustainable future. We look forward to further developing this cooperation in the coming period.
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Thanks to the supermarkets! In recent years, chairman Sieni has built up a solid relationship with supermarket owners and company managers across the country. Because of this we may regularly 'under the button', or,with our own busses, at the package vending machine. We from Havonos are very aware that we cannot do our work in Sri Lanka without this financial support. Ultimately, it are the customers of the supermarkets who decide to donate their deposit to Havonos, but it are the owners and managers who eventually make it possible. We are also grateful to them for their commitment to Havonos. |
Thanks to all our volunteers!
To whom we also owe many thanks are our volunteers. It is great how they work for people they do not know and with such a warm heart! Without your help and effort we can not realize the beautiful and much-needed projects. So: thanks, thanks, thanks!
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Christmas greeting from Father Edwin and his lightning visit to the Netherlands In November, Father Edwin, principal (head) of OMI, paid a lightning visit to the Netherlands, because he was in Europe anyway. Together with Anton from Venray, a Sri Lankan living in the Netherlands who also realizes projects in collaboration with OMI, he paid a short visit to our chairman Sieni, here in Raalte. Good agreements were made during this short visit. Father Edwin sends you all from Sri Lanka a Christmas greeting, in which he expresses the gratitude of all the Fathers and the beneficiaries of the projects. |
| Christmas greetings from Sri Lanka The year is just about to end and we, the OMI - Jaffna Province, Sri Lanka, send Christmas and New Year greetings to all of you. This is a celebrating season and the Lord has been so good to us through HAVONOS and its collaborators Wild Geese, Helping Hands and Share4More throughout the year. We want to express our deepest thanks for your entire financial and moral support to the poor, war effected people in the North of Sri Lanka. Generous gifts from donors like you provide education of children, economic upliftment of women headed families, skill development of the youth and the development of poorer communities. It is our hope that this simple message at Christmas 2018 will show our warm feelings to you. We look forward to a continuing partnership in 2019. Rev. Fr. S. Edwin Vasantharajah, OMI Provincial Superior, OMI – Jaffna Province, Sri Lanka |
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Visit of employee Joke from Warnsveld to Anna's Home for Children A few months ago Havonos president Sieni was unexpectedly called by a lady called Joke, from Warnsveld. Joke contacted her because she had read about the work of Havonos through the poster at the packaging action in Gorssel. This telephone conversation was the beginning of a nice and warm contact (and the inclusion of a new volunteer for Havonos!). Joke has been on holiday in Sri Lanka and has stayed with Zr. Chrishani in Anna's Home for Children. In addition, she also visited the learn-work farm and other projects. Joke of course came back with lots of photos and stories. Joke also discovered during her visit a home for children with disabilities. She was deeply impressed by the miserable situation she saw there. This is not a Havonos project, but she imediately submitted a request for help to us. We will discuss this in our next meeting. We hope that the contact with Joke can be long and successful. |
Toys ‘Goedzakactie’ Albert Heijn Enschede
Last year around this time, the Albert Heijn supermarket in Enschede held a ‘Goedzakactie’, especially for Havonos. It had a tremendous effect! The customers of this supermarket brought massively toys to the store. For some time those toys were stored by one of our board members, until we found a way to get them to Sri Lanka. That opportunity came in June of this year, when a befriended colleague organization from the Netherlands, Medi-Aid Foundation, shipped a container of goods to Sri Lanka. Our toys were allowed to join and all corners and holes were filled with that! Carla, Martin and Wimal thank you for your cooperation! And so it was possible that Father Seger drove with a car full of toys to Anna's Home for Children, the learning-working farm, and various schools, to distribute the toys there. So many children were made happy with the beautiful toys! Just look at these photos! Albert Heijn Enschede and its customers: on behalf of all these children, thank you very much!
The ‘Night of the tip’
On the learning-working farm they wish to have a computer room, whith, of course, computers and equipment. This project we have presented at Wilde Ganzen for the "The Night of the tip" campaign. The ‘Night of Tipping’ is an annual student initiative with around 700 catering establishments giving their tip away. More than 100 students in different cities commit themselves annually to make this day and night a great success. With the proceeds, six carefully selected small-scale sustainable development projects are fully financed. Hopefully we will be among those six projects!
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Preview 2019 We close this news item with our preview for 2019. First we intend to complete the renovation of Anna's Home. Also the 3 new classrooms at the YEC will be completed and put into use. A deep desire is to provide more specialized ICT training to the youth of the YEC and for that we will set up computer rooms, with the cooperation of Marjolein Meijer-Nieuwenhuis and Annemieke Kornblum-Twisk of the ‘Rock Kids Foundation’. This organization will make it possible to train the trainer program for the IT teachers. A number of teachers will come to the Netherlands for a few months. Exciting! |
Furthermore, there is a wish list ready, which we already bend over. We want a lot, but we cannot do everything at once. But with the help of the aforementioned fellow organizations, with the support of the supermarkets, funds, and especially with your help, many beautiful projects can be realized. We are optimistic and looking forward to it. Do you? Of course we will also keep you informed in 2019 through our news reports.
Finally, we wish you all very beautiful, festive holidays, and a beautiful, healthy and very happy 2019. We see you back in the new year! Healthy and strong and full of energy!
