We have just returned from the Rosie May Home, 14 months after the first girls arrived and what a difference. We now have 13 Children living in the home, all smiling and living as a family. They are all so confident and get on so well together.
The 'Rosie May Children' as they now call themselves, have settled into the local school in Boossa and are also enjoying a dance lesson on Saturday mornings.
The garden too looked amazing. The Staff and Children have worked so hard growing plants.
We had fantastic time organising activities with the girls.
Party! Celebrating the first year as a family.
Sri Lanka Smiles! with Laurence.
Day Trip to the Turtle Hatchery and picnic on the beach...everyone got wet releasing baby turtles back into the sea!
On the 28th December 2008, five years to the day after we lost our beautiful daughter and just over four years since we witnessed first hand the destruction in the wake of the Tsunami in South East Asia, Rosie May Home was officially opened.
Mary cutting the ribbon....Rosie May Chidren's Home declared open!
Rosie May Children's Home
It was an emotional day....but all those little smiles makes made it all worthwhile, we are sure Rosie May will be watching over them.
We will publish more shortly and will update the video. Graham & Mary x
UPDATE 21st December 2008
We now have five Children in the Rosie May Home and expecting another five just before Christmas.... Full update in the new year.
UPDATE 4th November 2008
On the 27th October the first Children arrived at the Rosie May Home and settling in well.
UPDATE 9th October 2008
The Dining Room
The Rosie May Home is now finished and looks just amazing!!
We have now employed a Matron and five staff to run the home. Three of them started on the 1st October.
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UPDATE 9th May 2008
The Rosie May Home in Boossa, Sri Lanka, is now completed and awaiting delivery of furniture and fittings. The social services in Sri Lanka will make a final inspection of the building the first week of June and then the first Children will start to arrive into the home over the following month.
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UPDATE 8th February 2008
The main building work is now almost complete. Bathrooms are fitted and just painting to be finished. The Landscapers will then start to move in to work on the grounds and develop the play area.
Graham, Luke, Laurence and Mary at the Rosie May Home in Boossa.
During November we visited our projects in Sri Lanka. The building of the Rosie May Home in Boossa is progressing well and getting to the finishing stages. The home looks fantastic set in the tropical surroundings.
We met with our Architect and Contractor to discuss some additions to the main building.
A Landscape Architect has also offered his services to develop a plan for the grounds and play area for the Children.
At present a perimeter wall is being constructed around the whole site to keep the Children secure.
We will then start to furnish the home and look forward to welcoming the first Children into the Rosie May Home in the New Year.
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UPDATE - 30th October 2007
The Main Building is ready for the final stage of fitting out.
The New Road Goes In Leading Up To 'Rosie May Home' & 'The Child and Youth Development Centre'
Let Painting Commence!
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UPDATE - 28th August 2007
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UPDATE - 20th August 2007
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UPDATE - 30th JULY 2007
Outside Walls Rendered
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UPDATE - 21st JULY 2007
Dining Room
Bedroom - Ready for windows
UPDATE - 23rd JUNE 2007
Front Entrance
Dining Room
Team photo...We tavelled from the UK, Australia and India to give a helping hand with the project.
On the 4th December 2006, building commenced of the Rosie May Children's Home in Boossa, just outside Galle, Sri Lanka, with the official laying of the foundation stone. Dr Jayasena, Trustee of the People in Need Foundation (our partner charity in Boossa), laid the first stone along with his wife.
It was a special and colourful day with the Pre-School Children from the Child and Youth Development Centre performing their concert.
Keep checking this page to see the progress over the next few months.
The Smile Centre in Hambantota is now feeding 86 Tsunami Orphans and street children daily! This is amazing progress since our visit in December when there were then just sixteen children on the register.
Forty pre-school children attend in the mornings for teaching and a hot meal, in the afternoon forty children age 6 to 12 years arrive for their hot meal, English and Maths lessons.
Smile Lanka, the charity we are working with, have now purchased a building and land for a permanent centre. This has classrooms for teaching, rooms for volunteers, a shop front to have an Internet café and sell local crafts to encourage self-sufficiency.
The first Rosie May Home will be located in the garden for residential children, which is planned to be completed by December.
Our first volunteer, Eileen, spent four weeks teaching English to the children and staff in April. Eileen will be using her experience to help us initiate a volunteer programme for 2007.
Rosie May Home II will be situated in Boosa and be a replica of the first home.
A small family home with live-in house parents for Tsunami orphans. Planning permission has been applied for by the Sri-Lankan charity People In Need Foundation and we aim for completion in May 2007.
The children will be sponsored by friends of the Rosie May Memorial Fund and the scheme will involve regular updates on progress and development of the child for the sponsor, with the opportunity to visit the project and meet their sponsored child.We intend to visit both projects in the Autumn when building work starts.
In December 2004 we decided to go away for Christmas as a family. After much consideration we decided to go to the Maldives where Christmas was not celebrated and where other families with children would not surround us. After a harrowing year we wanted to get away from life, as we knew it and have time with our boys.
On Christmas day we planted a palm tree in memory of our little girl we said that we would come back to see it one day.
Our last day was Boxing Day; we waited with our diving equipment for the boat, which was due to depart at 10am. As we stood on the shore of the lagoon we were suddenly aware of a surge of water advancing that covered the football pitch in the middle of the island. From the other side of the island guests came running to tell us that their bungalows had been flooded and that the force of the water had smashed windows.
Then the strangest phenomena occurred. The sea receded as quickly as it had come in exposing the coral reef where we had previously scuba dived. The realisation that the wave would come back again started a camaraderie effort to protect the main building on the centre of the island. Guests helped fill sand bags with their bare hands and bail out with ice buckets whilst staff were unaware that their own loved ones in Sri Lanka and India were also in danger.
The second wave was higher and more destructive, however we had warning and were prepared unlike so many others. As the day progressed we watched in silence as the devastation and death from the Tsunami in South East Asia unfolded.
On our return to the airport we met others who had been injured and lost their entire possessions, they told us we were “lucky” to escape unharmed. We knew however that Rosie May was watching over us, miraculously the little palm tree stood untouched with debris and destruction floating around it.
The Tsunami experience was a turning point for us. We felt that we had been kept safe for a reason and that is that we do have a future together as a family. However daunting the prospect of that is for us we felt that we could do something to help other children not only in the UK but in South East Asia too.
We travelled from Colombo to Unatawuna along coast road. We knew that we would see evidence of Tsunami damage we had of course seen it on the TV, however we were not prepared for what were to experience first hand.
As we drove out of the city into the suburbs onto the costal road we came across a few temporary wooden shelters next to houses that were obviously being rebuilt. Piles of bricks and stone were neatly stacked and it appeared that people were rebuilding their lives and there was some sense of order.
Further on a few more shelters followed by a small village of them, now both sides of the road for as far as the eye could see. We came across numerous signs that were telling us which charity was sponsoring the rebuilding of villages and schools and so it went on and on. The enormity of the destruction was unfolding before us endless and unrelenting; it was easy to understand how so many lives had been lost.
We stopped to take photos of tumbled down houses, foliage now growing over rubble, the water marks where the wave reached still clearly visible, a chair left in the kitchen, roofs totally ripped off, abandoned houses everywhere an eerie silence, out of nowhere the owner would appear point to the rubble to tell us this was what was left of their house. They described how they had lost their wife, husband, child, father or mother some were still on crutches from injuries they still seemed shocked even after a year that they still could not believe what had happened to them, we could of course completely identify with them.
Outside one small cluster of shelters three women and a small boy were twisting string into bundles on a wheel. They told us they were not allowed to rebuild their houses where they originally were because the government has said all homes must now be built 200 meters away from the beach in case there was another Tsunami. They did not want to move inland, their husbands were fishermen, the lucky ones that had survived they needed to live close to the sea. Because they had not moved they had been told it would now take up to three years to re house them. Drinking water was provided in containers by the Red Cross, sanitation a squat outside, their kitchen an open fire outside. We gave the children some sweets and moved on.
Monday December 19th 2005 We visited a turtle hatchery situated on the beach in the district of Galle. It had been completely wiped out by the tsunami. He told us the wave was 30 feet high and it just came with no warning.. The restaurant and souvenir shop gone, the containers the turtles were in, everything. Because the owner lives inland and his home was not damaged he did not qualify for any compensation from the government to rebuild his business. He is not allowed to rebuild his restaurant again because it is on the beach and now has to be 100 meters away. Of course it has to be next to the turtle hatchery for the tourists.
So he was scratching a living as best he could, his employees who had survived the Tsunami were working as volunteers. They had salvaged the tanks and started to build up the hatchery again, one adult turtle was rescued and had lost both front flippers in the Tsunami he would not be able to be released back into the sea. I asked to go to the toilet he apologised that there was only one which he had just built, there used to be six.
The women were selling souvenirs in a makeshift wooden hut, desperate to sell; of course you felt that you had to buy turtle t shirts that you knew you would never wear! It was all we could do to help and we felt so inadequate. Our guide had lost his father and his home in the Tsunami; he was living with a friend. His leg had been broken by the wave, he knows that the owner of the turtle hatchery could not pay him so he worked anyway because he loved the turtles they were his life, we gave him some money. The situation was just so very sad it was obvious that the turtle hatchery business will never thrive as it did; however it will survive as long as tourists continue to go.
Tuesday 20th December The train that was derailed in Galle by the Tsunami killed nearly everyone onboard. People climbed onto the roof for safety when the first wave came and then drowned as the second wave engulfed them. Some carriages remain on their side rusting, the track looked like a toy train track that had just been tossed to one side, a stark reminder of the horror of that day.
As we walked towards the train we were quickly surrounded by a group of mostly women some carrying young children. We were pulled and tugged by the women who pleaded with us to listen to “their story.” One women showed me a photograph of a beautiful bride with five bridesmaids, the bride and the two youngest bridesmaids were now dead.
A women asked Graham if he would like to see her newly built house so he went with her and the other women crowded in after him, she pleaded with him to help them. She explained that it was mostly the men who were fishermen and small children who were on the beach and could not save themselves that were killed when the wave came. She said that once the people of this community had had a good life, now the men that had survived had lost their livelihood and they were reduced to begging from tourists.
She showed him her Tsunami ration book and death certificates of her husband, children and grandchildren she was obviously not an exception. The new houses were clearly inadequate, there was no kitchen this was an open fire outside, she said that before she had a kitchen with electricity. They were desperate and angry with the government who they felt had abandoned them.
Luke and Laurence were also surrounded by the women, children linking arms with them as we endeavoured to make our way back to the van. We had sweets which we decided we would give them but as soon as we tried to hand them out it was complete chaos.
We tried to distribute them fairly however this proved to be an impossible task, we gave them all away and decided that we needed to leave, before there was mass hysteria. We drove away with children tapping on the windows pointing to items we had in the van and women with hands clasped together in prayer saying “God bless you” an extremely humbling experience.
Wednesday 21st December 2005 In Galle alone 3,500 people were killed in the Tsunami leaving over a thousand parentless children. Boossa is a small village close to Galle where the Rosie May Home will be built.
We intend to build a small family type home for ten children with house parents. The children will be Tsunami orphans, boys and girls so that siblings can be kept together.
Today we went to visit the site of the home which is owned by the People In Need Foundation an indigenous charity founded when the Tsunami hit last Boxing Day.
Dr Jayesena opened up his ancestral family home in Galle to displaced people when the Tsunami hit and with the help of a German doctor they quickly established a first aid post which has now developed into a clinic offering free medical care.
Over the last year PINF have established a Child and Youth Development Centre at this site. We visited the pre-school where 40 Tsunami children age 3 to 6 years are now registered and the IT school where over 300 Tsunami people aged from 11 to 20 years are registered for free IT courses. Outside is a playground for the pre school children built by volunteers with a tree house and swings and a slide.
The plot for the Rosie May Home is on the 3 acre site and will be the first of several similar homes built. The orphans will benefit from the facilities of the centre and will be educated at the local school. Parentless children cannot be registered as orphans until 12 months after the Tsunami so that opportunity has been given for the children to be adopted by surviving relatives. Unfortunately during this time these children are open to abuse, neglect and exploitation, many have not returned to school since the Tsunami.
On our return to Colombo we will meet with Dr Jayasena and the architect to finalise the plans for the Rosie May Home. The orphans will be sponsored at a cost of about £20 per month by families in the UK through the Rosie May Memorial Fund. Volunteers will also be able to go and work at the centre through the RMMF and offer their skills.
We feel this project has given us a glimmer of light after the last two years of darkness and despair. Rosie May can never be replaced however we can now help children in desperate need through the legacy of our beautiful daughter. Rosie May was at only ten years of age always aware and concerned for the welfare of other children less fortunate then herself, we know that she would be the first to help the Tsunami orphans.
Thursday 22rd December 2005 Everyone here has a story to tell about the Tsunami and they are always willing to talk to us.
We met a man today in Galle who had lost his daughter and granddaughter when the wave came. Before the Tsunami he was working as a tourist guide and was high up on the fort when the wave surged inland. He watched helpless as the horror unfolded below him, the wave took everyone and everything in its path. As we stood talking to him in the busy streets it was easy to understand how so many were killed in Galle. There is a market which lines both sides of the roads, a bus station, a train station, a cricket stadium and bumper to bumper traffic and people. He told us if we had been here in the street when the Tsunami hit we would have not stood a chance.
No tourists came for the first three months after the Tsunami and even now there are very few. Whilst we were in Galle we saw no other Europeans at all. The man told us there has been no work as a tourist guide since. He showed us a photo of his surviving grandson who is now two years old and said that he had not been able to give him any milk for the last four days as he had no money. We offered him money but he refused and said that if we wanted to buy milk for the baby he would accept it as a gift. We went and bought enough milk to last the baby two months he blessed us and rushed off to take it home.
We have been received by the people of Sri Lanka so warmly, they are happy to let us take photos and tell us they have had a lot of help from British charities. It is their own Government that they seem to be disappointed and angry with. There is evidence of many charities working on projects rebuilding communities from different countries and British Red Cross containers filled with drinking water are in most places.
We are however shocked to see families still living in frame tents and wooden temporary shelters a year on and it appears that many people have not had help to regain their livelihood and provide for their family again. The Tsunami has quite clearly had the most devastating effect on the poorest of the poor. Now it is even harder for them to survive than before. Our experience is of course only a glimpse of the vast destruction caused by the Tsunami. However a glimpse of children living in poverty is heartbreaking for us knowing that our own child who we were able to provide for was denied a life and that we were denied the opportunity to give it to her.
Boxing Day 26th December 2005 (First anniversary of the Tsunami) As we made the 2 hour drive to Hambantota the devastation caused by the Tsunami was apparent. Some areas of the coastline clearly affected more than others, once again the scale of the damage is huge. As we get closer to the town of Hambantota the temporary shelters and tented camps increase in number a stark reminder of how many people were displaced here.
We met Rev De Silva and his wife on the main road and followed them to the centre we felt quite nervous as we were unsure of what to expect. The image of the children waiting excitedly in the doorway with the two youngest clutching palm leaves (a traditional Sri Lankan gift) will always stay with us. As we accepted the gifts they kneeled and touched our feet we felt very humble.
There are now 16 Tsunami children aged 5 to 12 years who attend the Smile centre everyday. The children have not been back to school since the Tsunami, some of them have never been at all even before the Tsunami. The most devastating effect has quite clearly been on the poorest of the poor. We presented a plaque and photograph of Rosie May and Rev De Silva prayed for Rosie May and our family and dedicated the centre in memory of Rosie May. He asked me to say something about Rosie May and so I told the children that she loved dancing, singing, other children and most of all she loved life. As they sang and danced for us we looked at the photograph of our darling daughter looking down smiling at them and we smiled too.
The Rosie May Memorial Fund has made an initial donation to the Smile centre for the maintenance for the first year. This includes provision of domestic staff a teacher and a trauma councillor as some of the children are still frightened of going to the beach or near the sea. The Smile centre provides a safe haven for the children where they can have a nutritious hot meal and have the opportunity of an education.
Our sons Luke 18 years and Laurence 15 years handed out gifts that we had bought for the children and chaos broke out with the sheer excitement of it all.
The boys raced outside with their balls wanting my boys to play catch and volley ball with them. The girls clutched their soft toys protectively; an older girl gave hers to a younger girl to hold whilst she marked out hopscotch with a stone in the dirt. Then tugging at my skirt they beckoned me over to play, of course I knew instinctively this is what Rosie May would have played with them if she were here right now so I threw the stone and hopped with an ache in my heart.
One boy has only one leg and uses a crutch which he zooms around on at a terrific speed. His parents sent him out begging until he came to the Smile centre everyday.
Another boy five years old, tiny for his age and completely adorable, does not have a home but lives with his parents in the road which they clean everyday and then bed down for the night. One of the girls is eleven and does not attend the centre everyday as some days she is left in charge of her younger siblings so that her mother who is now a single parent can go to work. A ten year old girl lives with her grandparents now her two other sisters are in a children’s home in Kandy too far away to visit and so the tragedy goes on.
The cook had prepared a special meal for us of rice and chicken curry followed by Mango ice cream obviously a rare treat judging by the total silence that fell as the children scraped every last spoonful out of their bowls. After lunch once again we caused complete mayhem as Luke and Laurence handed out what we thought were just lollipops but were also whistles much to the children’s delight! Eventually the teacher managed to calm the children down and they stood in line to say goodbye. One by one they kneeled and touched our feet with their hands clasped in prayer, the older children took the younger ones home.
We were asked if we would like to walk into the village and see where the children live so we walked down the dusty road and were met by some of the children from the centre. They had changed out of their clothes that they had worn at the centre and were now wearing dirty ragged clothing. The houses were basically one or two rooms, dark and dingy with a few plastic chairs and a selection of pots and pans in the corner. As we walked into the village the collection of children that gathered around us began to grow. Our video camera a source of amazement as they clamoured to see themselves on the screen.
The future for these children has been made brighter by the Smile centre they will now have a better start in life. The next stage is to open a pre school at the centre and this time next year to start to build a children’s home which we will fund as Rosie May Home 2.
As we travelled back in the dark the candles placed along the beaches had been lightfor loved ones lost in the Tsunami it was an extraordinary sight to see the flames flickering as far as the eye could see. Each flame representing a life that had been snuffed out in an instant and without warning. This of course we can identify with. After the last two years of darkness and despair we feel that the Smile centre has given our family a glimmer of light just like it has for the Tsunami children.
To View the BBC Report and Listen to our Audio Diary CLICK HERE
*Tsunami Feeding Station opened in Sri Lanka in memory of Rosie May*
Graham and Mary Storrie presented Clive & Ruth Doubleday from ‘Smile International’ with their first donation for £5,500 from the Rosie May Memorial Fund.
The feeding station is situated in Hambantota, on the South East Coast of Sri Lanka, where the Tsunami caused the most devastation. In this particular area many mothers were at the market on the coast when the wave hit and tragically this has left many single parent fathers who have lost their wives, their lively hood and are left struggling to care for their surviving children. They have no money to buy food and their houses have been destroyed.
The plan is to fund the feeding station for the first year, which opened in November. This will cover all costs including, rent, food and staff, which includes three cooks, a teacher and a counsellor. Children from the tented camps that still exist, will be fed daily at the feeding station . Some of these children who have not attended school since the Tsunami will now have the opportunity to be educated. Counselling will be available for those suffering from bereavement and trauma from the Boxing Day Tsunami. Graham and Mary will visit the feeding station in December when they visit Sri Lanka with their two sons Luke 18years and Laurence 15years. The project will be dedicated in her memory and a plaque will be presented on December 26th the first anniversary of the Tsunami by the Storrie family.
Smile International celebrated their 5th birthday in 2005 as a registered charity with an impressive track record of working in Eastern Europe, Africa and South East Asia giving aid, renovating orphanages and sponsoring children. They Presenting the first cheque to Smile International
have worked in Sri Lanka since the Tsunami.
Graham and Mary will also meet with Dr Jayasena the director of an indigenous charity ‘The People In Need Foundation’ to progress the build of Rosie Mays House. This small family orientated orphanage will be situated in Boossa village in the Galle district and Tsunami orphans will be registered by May 2006. A child and youth development centre has already been established by the charity and offer educational facilities for displaced children. Over 40 children are registered in a pre-school and 200 children are having computer lessons.
Dr Jayasena and the first Children at the Pre-School opening in Boossa
Even before the Tsunami the majority of children in Galle were living in extreme poverty. In the Galle district alone 44,582 persons were displaced and 3,724 killed by the Tsunami. There are over 1000 parentless children in Galle and even now a year later 150 temporary camps are still in existence.
“The feeding station will make a huge difference to the daily lives of these children and we are honoured to be able to help and work with both charities. We feel that it is appropriate to visit the projects on a significant anniversary and are looking forward to meeting the children and the staff. We will visit the camps to see for ourselves the conditions that many children are still living in”.
December is also a significant time for our family with the 2nd anniversary of the murder of Rosie May on 28th December 2003. Two years on we still miss our beautiful daughter desperately and continue to struggle to accept the harsh reality of our innocent child suffering a violent and terrifying death. Our lives have been left with a gaping hole and changed irrevocably. Rosie May can never be replaced however through her legacy we can continue to save the lives of other children and Rosie May will always be remembered through these living memorials.
The garden too looked amazing. The Staff and Children have worked so hard growing plants.
Party! Celebrating the first year as a family.
Day Trip to the Turtle Hatchery and picnic on the beach...everyone got wet releasing baby turtles back into the sea!
'High Fives' with Luke in the Rosie May Garden.
Mary cutting the ribbon....Rosie May Chidren's Home declared open!
Rosie May Children's Home
The Dining Room
The Rosie May Home is now finished and looks just amazing!! 
Outside Walls Rendered
Dining Room 
Team photo...We tavelled from the UK, Australia and India to give a helping hand with the project.
Roof going on the Bed Rooms
Founations Finished
UPDATE - AUGUST 2006
We travelled from Colombo to Unatawuna along coast road. We knew that we would see evidence of Tsunami damage we had of course seen it on the TV, however we were not prepared for what were to experience first hand.
We stopped to take photos of tumbled down houses, foliage now growing over rubble, the water marks where the wave reached still clearly visible, a chair left in the kitchen, roofs totally ripped off, abandoned houses everywhere an eerie silence, out of nowhere the owner would appear point to the rubble to tell us this was what was left of their house. They described how they had lost their wife, husband, child, father or mother some were still on crutches from injuries they still seemed shocked even after a year that they still could not believe what had happened to them, we could of course completely identify with them.
So he was scratching a living as best he could, his employees who had survived the Tsunami were working as volunteers. They had salvaged the tanks and started to build up the hatchery again, one adult turtle was rescued and had lost both front flippers in the Tsunami he would not be able to be released back into the sea. I asked to go to the toilet he apologised that there was only one which he had just built, there used to be six.
As we walked towards the train we were quickly surrounded by a group of mostly women some carrying young children. We were pulled and tugged by the women who pleaded with us to listen to “their story.” One women showed me a photograph of a beautiful bride with five bridesmaids, the bride and the two youngest bridesmaids were now dead. 
She showed him her Tsunami ration book and death certificates of her husband, children and grandchildren she was obviously not an exception. The new houses were clearly inadequate, there was no kitchen this was an open fire outside, she said that before she had a kitchen with electricity. They were desperate and angry with the government who they felt had abandoned them.
Dr Jayesena opened up his ancestral family home in Galle to displaced people when the Tsunami hit and with the help of a German doctor they quickly established a first aid post which has now developed into a clinic offering free medical care.
The plot for the Rosie May Home is on the 3 acre site and will be the first of several similar homes built. The orphans will benefit from the facilities of the centre and will be educated at the local school. Parentless children cannot be registered as orphans until 12 months after the Tsunami so that opportunity has been given for the children to be adopted by surviving relatives. Unfortunately during this time these children are open to abuse, neglect and exploitation, many have not returned to school since the Tsunami.
On our return to Colombo we will meet with Dr Jayasena and the architect to finalise the plans for the Rosie May Home. The orphans will be sponsored at a cost of about £20 per month by families in the UK through the Rosie May Memorial Fund. Volunteers will also be able to go and work at the centre through the RMMF and offer their skills.
No tourists came for the first three months after the Tsunami and even now there are very few. Whilst we were in Galle we saw no other Europeans at all. The man told us there has been no work as a tourist guide since. He showed us a photo of his surviving grandson who is now two years old and said that he had not been able to give him any milk for the last four days as he had no money. We offered him money but he refused and said that if we wanted to buy milk for the baby he would accept it as a gift. We went and bought enough milk to last the baby two months he blessed us and rushed off to take it home.
We met Rev De Silva and his wife on the main road and followed them to the centre we felt quite nervous as we were unsure of what to expect. The image of the children waiting excitedly in the doorway with the two youngest clutching palm leaves (a traditional Sri Lankan gift) will always stay with us. As we accepted the gifts they kneeled and touched our feet we felt very humble.
The Rosie May Memorial Fund has made an initial donation to the Smile centre for the maintenance for the first year. This includes provision of domestic staff a teacher and a trauma councillor as some of the children are still frightened of going to the beach or near the sea. The Smile centre provides a safe haven for the children where they can have a nutritious hot meal and have the opportunity of an education. 
One boy has only one leg and uses a crutch which he zooms around on at a terrific speed. His parents sent him out begging until he came to the Smile centre everyday.
We were asked if we would like to walk into the village and see where the children live so we walked down the dusty road and were met by some of the children from the centre. They had changed out of their clothes that they had worn at the centre and were now wearing dirty ragged clothing. The houses were basically one or two rooms, dark and dingy with a few plastic chairs and a selection of pots and pans in the corner. As we walked into the village the collection of children that gathered around us began to grow. Our video camera a source of amazement as they clamoured to see themselves on the screen.
The future for these children has been made brighter by the Smile centre they will now have a better start in life. The next stage is to open a pre school at the centre and this time next year to start to build a children’s home which we will fund as Rosie May Home 2. 
The plan is to fund the feeding station for the first year, which opened in November. This will cover all costs including, rent, food and staff, which includes three cooks, a teacher and a counsellor. Children from the tented camps that still exist, will be fed daily at the feeding station . Some of these children who have not attended school since the Tsunami will now have the opportunity to be educated. Counselling will be available for those suffering from bereavement and trauma from the Boxing Day Tsunami. Graham and Mary will visit the feeding station in December when they visit Sri Lanka with their two sons Luke 18years and Laurence 15years. The project will be dedicated in her memory and a plaque will be presented on December 26th the first anniversary of the Tsunami by the Storrie family.
Smile International celebrated their 5th birthday in 2005 as a registered charity with an impressive track record of working in Eastern Europe, Africa and South East Asia giving aid, renovating orphanages and sponsoring children. They Presenting the first cheque to Smile International