Linda Hopkins Memorial Centre to open in Sri Lanka

The Linda Hopkins Memorial Centre is to be opened officially next month in Nagoda, the Sri Lankan village rebuilt with funding from the global travel-retail industry after the original site was devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. The community centre was funded by the Tax Free World Association (TFWA), the Middle East Duty Free Association and other industry organisations in memory of former TFWA conference and research director Linda Hopkins, who died in December 2005.

 

TFWA president Erik Juul-Mortensen and vice-president conferences and research will visit Sri Lanka to officially inaugurate the new facility with Alpha Asia managing director Paul Topping and Centaur Travel Retail president Rakhita Jayawardena—the two driving forces behind the Alpha Sri Lanka Tsunami Relief Fund that enlisted global support to rebuild the village.

 

The Alpha Sri Lanka Tsunami Relief fund has raised well over $400,000 from within the travel-retail industry, helping to rehouse the almost 100 villagers left homeless after their original home, the village of Palliyawatte, was destroyed.