New Boat Site at Ariviyal Nagar (Knowledge City), Killinochchi

The opening ceremony of a new boat-yard site in Ariviyal Nagar (Knowledge City) was held on 14 th January 2006. GTZ is a company owned by the government in the Federal Republic of Germany. They contributed to the planning and implementation of this boat site, whereby receiving approval from the official German development corporation. The development of this site was funded by GTZ and Sustain, a non-profit non-governmental organisation. The Tamil community of England have links all over the world, and this has played a huge factor in their setup. Majority of Sustain’s efforts are targeted to the people of North-East Sri-Lanka.

The boat yard expects to produce several boats for the tsunami affected fishermen. Mr. Namasivayam, director of this boat site, lit the ceremonial lamp, whereby Mr. S. Suntharamoorthy hoisted the national flag. Mr Garpha, a native German, placed the very first foundations of the building, and had said in his speech: “the main objective of the project is to improve the social economic conditions of the people, who want and expect to lead a prosperous and independent life, which they hope, will contribute to their community”. Mr Garpha is from GTZ where he leads projects focussed in the North-East in the island of Sri-Lanka . GTZ recognise and share the same objectives as TECH, i.e. developing the skills of people, will lead to improving their living standards, as well as the community’s.

ECH Executive Director Mr. Sugunan was involved in several other income generation projects. TECH’s mission is to continually experiment with innovative ideas, which will lead to a practical application in North-East Sri-Lanka, and then use these results to improve the earning potential of our people. The youths in the North-East district are suffering from lack of skills to offer to their community, and therefore remain unemployed. This boat-building project will reap benefits for the youths in these districts, and in turn will impact the community in a positive manner. Others who have participated in this event were Ms. Geetha and Mr. J.Kumar from GTZ, Mr. Miranda, Mr. Monoharan, Mr. Muralitharan and Ms. Anusha. Entire event was presided by Mr.Nesanathan.