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TheMoodieReport.com: "Sri Lanka�s Travel Retail Village to benefit from library � 05/07/06
Source: The Moodie Report
By Dermot Davitt
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The village, officially opened in March, was funded by the travel retail industry.
SRI LANKA. The Travel Retail Village in Palliyawatta, Sri Lanka will benefit from a new library, as the community continues its recovery from the devastating tsunami of December 26 2004.

Donations from the travel retail industry enabled the community of 100 people to be re-housed in a new inland settlement, which officially opened on 16 March. The funding was handled by the Alpha Sri Lanka Tsunami Relief Fund, driven by industry executives Paul Topping and Rakhita Jayawardena.

The idea for the library came from Ravi, a duty manager at Alpha Orient Lanka�s (AOL) Arrivals shop at Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport. It will have a special emphasis on children�s education.

For a short period, the books will be housed at the office of Village head man Chrisantha, until the Village�s community centre is completed. TFWA Care, the charitable organisation set up by Tax Free World Association, will help fund the community centre, named in memory of TFWA Conferences and Research Director Linda Hopkins, who died in December.

Ravi and the AOL team have collected almost 500 books so far from colleagues and well-wishers. The target is to collect 10,000 books by December 2006.

Apart from books, the committee also hopes to make available the daily newspapers of Sri Lanka; international magazines such as National Geographic and Time; computers with Internet connectivity and a collection of recreational games such as chess. These measures will create a library not just for one community bu"