(September 11, 2010) The long wait for a permanent place to live is set to end for
several displaced Sri Lankan families after Caritas Chilaw laid the foundations for
new homes in the northern coastal village of Kalpitiya. This has given them a ray
of hope to look forward towards a permanent house. Having fled fighting in the far
north during the civil war in the 1990s, many Tamil families moved southward to seek
safety. Some 42 families fled to Kalpitiya with little more than the clothes on their
backs. Priests, religious and lay people in the parish helped them build temporary
homes, where they have remained ever since. But after integrating with the local population
over the intervening years, many of the families decided to stay after the end of
the fighting. Now their long wait for a permanent place to live is almost over. “These
are to be your new homes, so you have to give them your labour,” said Caritas director
Father Abraham Barnabas at a beachfront foundation laying ceremony for 12 houses on
September 9. Caritas allocated approximately 400,000 rupees (US$ 3,600) towards materials
for the homes, but it will be up to the new villagers to construct them. “Let us
set an example by helping each other,” Father Patrick Wijesinghe the vicar general
of Chilaw diocese told the gathering. Villagers promised the families to help build
their homes.