The day to go to the sea is coming soon.

Thanks to the Japan Platform and supporters, manufacturing of boats for the Fisheries Cooperative Societies (FCSs) has started as a part of the returnees support program in Vakarai, Batticaloa.

Based on the records of Ministry of Fisheries, fisherman in the Vakarai area lost 109 boats after the conflict in January. JEN will be supporting the FCSs, which suffered the biggest damage, by providing two boats each, in total twenty boats.

This area suffered huge damage due to the Tsunami at the end of 2004, after that, a lot of boats were distributed by the supporting associations. However, several of these distributed boats were manufactured with disregard to the surrounding environment, and some were manufactured focusing on speed rather than quality. As a result, some distributed boats were unfortunately unusable.

Learning from past experience, we organized the boat manufacturing to be done by a local, reputable boat manufacturing company and based designs on the recommendations of the fisherman involved in this project.

Boats are now in the course of manufacture by putting dozens of fiberglass together to ensure endurance and waterproof properties. All 20 boats are scheduled to be completed by the end of January 2008.