| Lal Peiris in Sri Lanka | - Sri Lankan born Lal Peiris is a manager of Worcestershire's Community Mental Health Partnership.
- He went back in the country of his birth after deciding to return and听 help traumatised victims of the disaster.
- As well as using his psychiatric expertise, Lal also offered to distribute photographs of missing people from Worcestershire and see if he can help to find them.
- He helped locate three medical students who were being supported by Teme Valley Lions club
- He also helped Jim & Jill Blundell find Shiromi Gamage - who they fostered.
- Lal has been filing regular reports for 主播大秀 H&W and has sent us pictures from Sri Lanka and made a Video Nation film.听
- For more click on the links under SEE ALSO at the top right hand side of this page.
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Last week on the 主播大秀 Hereford and Worcester Breakfast Show Mike George mentioned that a foster daughter of Jim & Jill Blundell from Bromsgrove was missing and that they had no news of her. She was reported to be living on the southern tip of Sri-Lanka and I was told that her name is Shiromi Gamage and that she was 27. I told Mike that I would try my best to locate her. The good news is that I found her.听 She has a very remarkable story and it was only after I met her that I realized how strange and remarkable our meeting was. Background history Shiromi, who was born in 1976,听 met with an accident when she was 10 years old She was studying with a kerosene oil bottle lamp (as they didn't have electricity) when the lamp fell on her and she was burnt badly. At the age of 13 some doctors from UK were in Sri Lanka and offered to do surgery on her to rectify this but she would need to go to UK.
 | | Lal with Shiromi Gamage |
They sought the assistance of the former Prime Minister in Sri-Lanka who gave a grant and the UK government also gave a grant for her to go to UK for surgery. She left for UK at the age of 13 unable to speak or write a word of English. She was admitted to Bright Eyes Hospital in Bromsgrove and because she would have had to undergo several operations and be in and out of hospital they arranged for her to be fostered by a couple in Redditch, Jim and Jill Blundell. Shiromi was fostered by this couple and stayed with them for eight months It was they who took her up and down to hospital and cared for her, and it was Jim and Jill who thought her to read and write English. She still calls them Mum & Dad. She returned to Sri-Lanka after eight months and says she has very fond memories of Worcestershire. Shiromi has a daughter called Sandaleek who is four. Survival On the day of the tsunami Shiromi & daughter fled to the hills. She says that the water was up to her chest and so she put her child on her shoulders and ran. She lost her house and everything in it, and I saw myself that there was nothing left of it. She stayed on the hill tops for a day and half as they were frightened to come down. She is now living with her parents who also suffered loss and damage but the house is still standing. In fact all her family who have been displaced are living in the small house. I could see the watermark all round the walls of the house, it was window high. The village she comes from is very badly damaged as to how anyone survived is just amazing It was very difficult to reach this place as the roads and culverts are damaged or destroyed - in fact you have to go by foot to reach her house. Shiromi sends her love to Jim & Jill and has given me a letter to forward to them. | 
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