Stories from the field – Donati
Pier Francesco Donati, architect and collaborator specialized in Water and Sanitation projects
The first love is never forgotten. It is with ASIA that I began my work in development cooperation and humanitarian interventions. It took a dose of unconsciousness and dissatisfaction to make the leap from the life of an architectural studio to a professionalizing master and then to the post-Tsunami work with ASIA in Sri Lanka. Jumping in the dark has never paid off more. The people I met, the discovery of a different way of doing construction projects by involving in the decision-making process the communities that would use the designed spaces, the hope placed in building something after the destruction.
Putting things together and thinking about a possible future. This has been the profession of people affected by the 
2004 Tsunami for many years. Families, dreams and hopes washed away in an instant, from a wave never seen before that has reached the hinterland and has wiped out everything it has encountered. The Urawatta community, whose economy was based on fishing, saw a lifetime’s efforts and livelihoods disappear in a moment. The people of Urawatta as well as those of Weragama, Matara and all other centers on the heavily affected west coast of Sri Lanka.
In Weragama, Urawatta and Matara ASIA has brought, with its community development projects, opportunities to the inhabitants of the area to start again with dignity. In Urawatta ASIA helped the local fishermen’s cooperative to build the community center which houses a microcredit bank for the families of fishermen and a kindergarten. On the inauguration day was a real joy to be welcomed by kindergarten children and teachers to celebrate a new beginning. And then the friendship with the manager, Aruna, who fully embraced the spirit of help to the communities and wanted to conduct the construction work of the center in a workmanlike manner. And the cruel beauty of the coast, where the damage was still visible and flowed like in a film, returning from site visits.
If after all these years, in different countries, I am still doing this job, I owe it to those two and a half years in Sri lanka, where I began to structure my skills guided by the inclusive and attentive style of ASIA.