An event to remember the tragic suffering caused by the December 2004 tsunami was organised by the White Pigeon UK on January 22 at Trafalgar Square, London.
Despite the very cold weather, several hundred people gathered for two hours to listen to speeches and pay their respects beneath the White Pigeon Banner displayed on the bottom of Nelson’s Column.
There was display of photographs of the tsunami-struck parts of Sri Lanka, whose northern, eastern and southern coastlines were badly hit, killing over thirty thousand people from all ethnicities.
In his welcome speech, Dr N S Moorty, Director of White Pigeon welcomed religious leaders of all faiths and other distinguished guests in attendance. He thanked the generosity of the British public, who helped to raise almost £1 million.
WP was able to send 25 doctors immediately and set up about 250 medical camps with medicine and medical equipments, preventing the spreading of epidemics and saving many lives.
He paid tribute to the efforts of the thousands of volunteers from the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) and Tamil Tiger cadres who struggled without rest for days to help survivors of all communities. This type of disaster relief structure was not available even during the cyclone in America or the earthquake in Pakistan, Dr. Moorthy said.
WP was initially set up to help the landmine victims in Sri Lanka. More than 19,000 landmine victims were helped by the artificial limbs. But after the tsunami WP expanded its activities supplying survivors with immediate relief, such as prepared food, clothes, and medicine and hygiene facilities, intermediate relief, such as temporary shelter and food for cooking and water for drinking and washing and permanent settlement, such as brick-built houses and employment opportunities.
“In providing the relief, we did not discriminate against people on the basis of race or religion,” Dr. Moorthy said.
Multi-faith prayers were given by Imam Shahid Hussain (Regents Park Mosque), Rev Liz Russell (St Martin-in-the-Fields Church), Venerable Sangthong (The Buddhist Temple) and Kamalanatha Kurukkal (Edmonton Nagapoosani Temple).
After the prayers, Robert Evens and Jean Lambert, members of European Parliament addressed the crowd.
Mr Robert Evens said that at the time of the tsunami he was on holiday in America where there was not much coverage on the media about the tsunami, but only after retuning to the UK he was able to understand the situation and he was amazed by the response of the British public.
Jean Lambert in her speech emphasised the problems recovering from the tsunami, including allocation of land, bureaucracy, lack of compensation and the on going conflict.
Then children aged from 5-10 from Sivayogam Arts Society, dressed in white, sang songs about the tsunami in Tamil.
Bala Karunakaran, a medical student from Kings College, London described his experience with the tsunami victims - he was on medical assignment in Kilinochchi hospital when the waves hit the coastline. Designed to treat a maximum of 100 patients per day, the hospital handled more than 1000 patients on December 26, 2004.
He said the hardest part of his work was to take pictures of the dead bodies by the only one digital camera. There were bodies of children in their best clothes as it was Christmas day, and there were no counsellors to console the survivors. On the following day they created a website to identify the dead bodies, he said.
Carmel Budianrdjo, an Indonesian human rights campaigner, spoke about how tsunami brought peace to that hard-hit country, bring the Aceh rebels (GAM) and the Indonesian Government to a settlement.
Kavitha Sathyamoorthy recited a poem in English about the tsunami followed by a poetry reading by Parm Kaur, a poet, playwright and director.
Peter Quiny, a relief worker, described his experience in Batticaloa, which had a high toll of death due to the tsunami: he felt that welfare centres there were well below international standards, particularly denying occupants privacy.
The Remembrance event concluded by Vote of thanks by Evelyn Rodrigues, a WP volunteer.
Despite the very cold weather, several hundred people gathered for two hours to listen to speeches and pay their respects beneath the White Pigeon Banner displayed on the bottom of Nelson’s Column.
There was display of photographs of the tsunami-struck parts of Sri Lanka, whose northern, eastern and southern coastlines were badly hit, killing over thirty thousand people from all ethnicities.
In his welcome speech, Dr N S Moorty, Director of White Pigeon welcomed religious leaders of all faiths and other distinguished guests in attendance. He thanked the generosity of the British public, who helped to raise almost £1 million.
WP was able to send 25 doctors immediately and set up about 250 medical camps with medicine and medical equipments, preventing the spreading of epidemics and saving many lives.
He paid tribute to the efforts of the thousands of volunteers from the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) and Tamil Tiger cadres who struggled without rest for days to help survivors of all communities. This type of disaster relief structure was not available even during the cyclone in America or the earthquake in Pakistan, Dr. Moorthy said.
WP was initially set up to help the landmine victims in Sri Lanka. More than 19,000 landmine victims were helped by the artificial limbs. But after the tsunami WP expanded its activities supplying survivors with immediate relief, such as prepared food, clothes, and medicine and hygiene facilities, intermediate relief, such as temporary shelter and food for cooking and water for drinking and washing and permanent settlement, such as brick-built houses and employment opportunities.
“In providing the relief, we did not discriminate against people on the basis of race or religion,” Dr. Moorthy said.
Multi-faith prayers were given by Imam Shahid Hussain (Regents Park Mosque), Rev Liz Russell (St Martin-in-the-Fields Church), Venerable Sangthong (The Buddhist Temple) and Kamalanatha Kurukkal (Edmonton Nagapoosani Temple).
After the prayers, Robert Evens and Jean Lambert, members of European Parliament addressed the crowd.
Mr Robert Evens said that at the time of the tsunami he was on holiday in America where there was not much coverage on the media about the tsunami, but only after retuning to the UK he was able to understand the situation and he was amazed by the response of the British public.
Jean Lambert in her speech emphasised the problems recovering from the tsunami, including allocation of land, bureaucracy, lack of compensation and the on going conflict.
Then children aged from 5-10 from Sivayogam Arts Society, dressed in white, sang songs about the tsunami in Tamil.
Bala Karunakaran, a medical student from Kings College, London described his experience with the tsunami victims - he was on medical assignment in Kilinochchi hospital when the waves hit the coastline. Designed to treat a maximum of 100 patients per day, the hospital handled more than 1000 patients on December 26, 2004.
He said the hardest part of his work was to take pictures of the dead bodies by the only one digital camera. There were bodies of children in their best clothes as it was Christmas day, and there were no counsellors to console the survivors. On the following day they created a website to identify the dead bodies, he said.
Carmel Budianrdjo, an Indonesian human rights campaigner, spoke about how tsunami brought peace to that hard-hit country, bring the Aceh rebels (GAM) and the Indonesian Government to a settlement.
Kavitha Sathyamoorthy recited a poem in English about the tsunami followed by a poetry reading by Parm Kaur, a poet, playwright and director.
Peter Quiny, a relief worker, described his experience in Batticaloa, which had a high toll of death due to the tsunami: he felt that welfare centres there were well below international standards, particularly denying occupants privacy.
The Remembrance event concluded by Vote of thanks by Evelyn Rodrigues, a WP volunteer.
