Tsunami Birdhouses
Our unique, limited-edition “Tsunami Birdhouses” were crafted in the southwest of Sri Lanka out of “tsunami wood” and other materials P2P Rescue salvaged following the Indian Ocean disaster of Dec. 26, 2004. Collected around the country’s coast near villages still reeling from the tragedy, the wood will forever preserve and honor the memories of many lives lost.
See the birdhouses currently in our Shop…
The handcrafted birdhouses symbolize the power of nature to renew. While birds will make their homes in your garden, income generated from the sales of Tsunami Birdhouses will fund P2P Rescue programs that help people in Sri Lanka continue to rebuild their lives.
Each house is a true original, differing in the kinds of tsunami wood employed and the skill and creative vision of the Sri Lankan artist. No two houses are alike, but they all serve as a reminder of humankind’s important relationship with nature.
Along with the birdhouse, we have included other special gifts (while supplies last). A booklet called Mr. Elephant tells a charming story about Sri Lanka’s special elephant-dung paper. A small bird mask—a Sri Lankan symbol of protection—adorns the house, too. It was hand-carved and painted specifically for this project in Ambalangoda–a town famous for making these beautiful, mythological pieces.
Whether you display your birdhouse indoors as a work of art or place it in your garden to provide shelter for wildlife, we’re sure you will feel satisfied with your purchase. The birds thank you; P2P Rescue thanks you; and, most importantly, the people of Sri Lanka thank you.
Hello. My name is Amila.
I am one of the architects of the Tsunami Birdhouses. I live in a village called Venamulla, on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka. My village has 500 families. When the big waves came, we lost many people and homes. We cannot recover the people we have lost, but any birdhouse you purchase will give us money for rebuilding programs in our village and others near us.
It will take us time to recover from things that happened to us. We have many bad memories. But your kindness is giving us new memories to replace the bad ones and jobs so we can help ourselves. It is with much heart that I thank you for supporting this village and this project. You are a very good person.
Adarai (”Love”), Amila.
Quick Links
- To the Shop!
- View pictures of other “Birdboys” (our nickname for our birdhouse architects)
- Read what the San Francisco Chronicle (80K pdf) or Evergreen Times (325K pdf) had to say about our birdhouse project.
- Be sure to check out Ten Features of a Good Birdhouse as told by Michael Parayno, one of our partners and founder of Berkeley Rustic Birdhouses. While we have tried to meet as many standards as possible, our birdhouses were created in a uinique environment and with a unique vision. Some may be slightly less standard than the typical pre-fab birdhouse but certainly a thousand times more interesting!