Trustee Jo Barton was one of 20 people who attended our first ever Christmas Wreath and Table Decoration fund raising evening.

What a lovely fundraising evening. On a dark & gloomy December evening, a Hall in Church Crookham was filled with the smells & spirit of Christmas.
After watching a very professional demonstration by Christine & Ruth, we let our creative ideas flow as we came up with different ways to use fresh flowers, greenery, Christmas crackers, ribbons etc to create festive table decorations.

The Hall was filled with chat & laughter (& the delicious smell of fruit punch) & by the end of the evening the tables were covered with original & imaginative decorations worthy of adding Christmas colour to any home.

The event was such a success we are planning an Easter Floral event. Details to follow!!

Dear Friends and Supporters of Ocean Stars Trust.
Thank you all very much for your loyal and committed support for our work in Sri Lanka, empowering children and changing lives. In October I travelled to Sri Lanka with 40 volunteers from the UK.

We worked directly and indirectly with about 3500 children during their visit. Seeing a sponsor child receive his first ever bicycle and hearing him thank us for making a dream come true for him, and the tears in his mother's eyes as he received the bike, was one of many
special moments.

21 students and 4 teachers from Calthorpe Park school in Fleet visited a tsunami village during their stay.

The 75 families who survived
the tsunami in this village had been asked to move back to their own land here recently, so the school group were met by families living in very basic huts with no sanitation, electricity or running water. The students were galvanised into
action to make a difference to these families, and revisited the village with the local village committee and police to distribute emergency aid.

As we approached one hut, a boy came out and ran towards the students and teachers with a big smile on his face, as he was a student at one of the link schools Calthorpe had worked in.  He was so happy that we had made the effort to come and visit his village and to show the local people we cared about them.
The passing of Mr Rasanayagam is a very sad loss to OST. We have supported his work and the
450 children at Mahadeva since 2013, and many OST volunteers have visited this Children's Home,
directed with love and care from dedicated staff.

OST will continue to fund several projects at this well-run Home, including a new preschool building .
I wish all our friends and supporters a Very Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year 2018.

Dilanee Bunter, Founder, Ocean Stars Trust.

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When I became the Headteacher at Heatherside Infant School I was introduced to the work of Ocean Stars by a wonderful member of my teaching staff at that time, Maureen Johnston. She established the link between our school and the work the charity undertake in Sri Lanka.  Every year we fund raise in the autumn term for the children whose lives are touched by Ocean Stars and we learn a little bit more about their work and we see the smiling faces of the children shining out from the pictures from the teams' latest visit.

Pictures are a wonderful and very powerful thing; however, I knew that I couldn't truly understand how different life was for these children.  I had the growing need to empower our Heatherside children in better understanding how we can make a difference to others but in particular the children of the school in the small and remote Sri Lankan village called Ampilanthurai, who in a small way we support.  I knew that at some point I needed to go and visit and see them for myself.

This autumn my husband, Aidan and I were privileged to be part of the Ocean Stars 2017 team. This was for us both a very enlightening, emotionally humbling and spiritual experience.  I have come back having experienced first-hand and been touched by the beauty of Sri Lanka, both in its landscape and its people. However I am equally very aware of the great poverty and at the same time inspired by their desire to learn. I was equally very impressed with how the work of the Ocean Stars Trust has grown and taken root so that it is really making a difference to the people it really does empower.

As I move forward from this visit, it is clear that as a school we could do so much more to support the work of Ocean Stars. It is also clear that part of that work needs to be founded in empowering our Heatherside Community both parents and children to strengthen these links.  In this way Ocean Stars will have the means to provide the much needed support locally in Sri Lanka which will in turn empower their community to determine their own futures and break through the local prejudice and poverty that they face.

There were so many experiences and moments that will walk with me and assist me as I try to continue to support this work but most of all two things will stand out. The first is my visit to the primary school at Ampilanthurai Village; the second is the formally deserted village along the shore line at Batticaloa that was destroyed by the tsunami. However this year people are being forced to re occupy this village with living conditions that are heart breaking. In these I saw first-hand the need of the children there and what a difference our support could make to the lives of those children!

The principal at Ampilanthurai Primary and myself.

Jaya and myself at Shining Stars Ampilanthirai

My Husband Aidan and myself in our Sri Lankan outfits

Dilanee and Maureen gave a presentation at Charlton Horethorne Primary CofE School to the children, staff and some parents, in recognition of the school's ongoing support for the partner Preschool in Kirankulam, near Batticaloa. There were all 61 children, aged 4 to 11, present at this small village school.

Dilanee gave a background to the charity, mentioning in particular how terrible life was after the 2004 tsunami, and how OST uses the donations received. Maureen stressed what life is like at Kirankulam, and how the school's donations have helped by supplying furniture, resources, and uniforms for the preschool. Dilanee also taught the children a Tamil song with actions, and initiated some paper activities to conclude.

We thank Mrs Katherine Vaughan at Charlton Horethorne for her arrangement of the visit, and also to teacher Mrs Watkins for presenting OST with a cheque from a recent collection. Mrs Watkins said how pleased she was the school knows better the people behind their chosen international charity.

We arrived at Trinco to find ourselves in the middle of the various gifts donated being given out to individual children and families.

Seeing children at the gate so grateful and happy to receive a pair of shoes to wear or a bike to ride to and from school was so humbling. For each of them it meant so much and a number of them  struggled to express their feelings. However, their reaction and smiles said it all.

Being asked to give 20 chicks each, to the mothers of two families so they could have fresh eggs was both emotional and humbling. We were in the midst of people who had so very little and yet their faces and reaction meant they had received so much.