Madam, - I would like to express my profound thanks to readers for their extraordinary generosity to GOAL's south-east Asia emergency appeal.
These essential donations are now helping our aid workers (GOALies) to rebuild communities in Southern India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Andaman Islands.
On a recent visit to the affected regions with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, I saw at first hand the destruction left behind by the tsunami. Entire villages have been wiped out. Traumatised children will endure nightmares for years to come about the wave that destroyed their homes and families.
The dedicated teams of nurses, doctors, accountants, logisticians and engineers began by clearing the debris and undertook the harrowing task of retrieving bodies from the beaches.
GOAL is providing food and other items (blankets, sleeping-mats, soap, cooking utensils and containers), as well as shelter, healthcare and counselling to hundreds of thousands of people who have lost everything.
In Sri Lanka, the US government asked GOAL to take the lead in constructing 2,500 temporary shelters. Our GOALies are also working with fishermen to repair and replace broken fishing nets.
In India, GOAL's community kitchens provide more than 11,000 with three meals a day and in the worst affected areas of Indonesia, our medical team is administering immunisation programmes to prevent the spread of disease in the relief camps.
GOAL believes in keeping its cost base as low as possible, and is proud to have kept administration costs at an average of 5 per cent over a 27-year period. Once again I would like to thank anyone who has contributed in any way to our work in the tsunami-affected regions. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN O'SHEA, GOAL, PO Box 19, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.