A month after the devastation of the Asian tsunami disaster, schools are reopening in Trincomalee.

When schools in the northeastern district of Trincomalee reopened last Monday, after a month's delay, 1359 children were well equipped with brand new school bags and sets of exercise books to make a re-entry to schools that had been converted to displaced camps post-tsunami. World Vision distributed these much-needed school items to children from about seven temporary welfare centers located in the rebel-held areas of Verugal.

Many people in coastal areas of Trincomalee, having had lost their homes in the tidal wave catastrophe along with all their belongings, were forced to stay in undamaged schools and other public buildings. But both the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and the Sri Lanka Government are presently resettling people to other areas, providing temporary shelter until more permanent housing can be arranged. This will enable the majority of schools to be vacated so that children can begin their academic studies and gradually get on with normal life.

The WV convoy received the same reception of smiles and waving hands in both the LTTE-held areas as well as the Sri Lanka Government-controlled areas of Trincomalee. Last Sunday World Vision, accompanied by a media crew from WV Germany, drove to a school building in Mavadichenai, some five kilometers outside of Eachilampattu in Verugal division after rain made it impossible to reach the original distribution site. In no time school children from seven surrounding welfare centers arrived, some even on a tractor.

The day before, a truck had left the World Vision warehouse in Colombo filled with Sri Lankan-made school bags and exercise books for the children who lost all their school materials in the three tsunami tidal waves on 26 December.

"World Vision has been distributing water to over 1400 families in the Kinniya and Muthur towns for the past two weeks through hired bowsers, each containing about 6000 liters," said Rajkumar Nagarajah, Emergency Relief officer for World Vision Lanka. "We plan to work with the Water Board of Trincomalee in the next two weeks to continue the water distribution to these two towns, Nagarajah explained.

According to the Child Protection officer for World Vision International, Carol Toms, World Vision has major plans in coming months to help children in Trincomalee get back to a normal routine in life. "We are delighted that we will be working in Trincomalee and other areas in the coming month to bring about a sense of normalcy to the lives of children who have been affected in the tsunami disaster," Toms said. She explained that World Vision had a variety of creative and constructive activities planned for children in the tsunami-affected areas of Sri Lanka.

World Vision is also working with authorities to provide temporary and permanent shelter to the displaced thousands in welfare centers in Trincomalee.