The Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement is a self-governance movement in Sri Lanka, which provides comprehensive development and conflict resolution programs to villages. It is also the largest indigenous organization working on reconstruction from the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Founded in 1958 by A. T. Ariyaratne when he took “forty high school students and twelve teachers from Nalanda College Colombo on “an educational experiment” to an outcaste village, Kathaluwa, and helped the villagers fix it up. As of 2006, Sarvodaya staff people and programs are active in some 15,000 (of 38,000) villages in Sri Lanka. The organization estimates that 11 million citizens are individual beneficiaries of one of its programs. The group distributes funds from a financial reserve bank of 1.6 billion rupees. The Sarvodaya movement belongs to the Global Ecovillage Network. Etymology The movement is based on Buddhist and Gandhian principles. Coined by Mohandas Gandhi, the terms sarvodaya ('welfare for all'), and swaraj (self-governance). The word shramadana means 'gift of labour'. Collectively, the name 'Sarvodaya Shramadana' means 'welfare for all through our shared labour'. History In 1958, the neglected village of Rodiya, inhabited by social outcasts and beggars, received help in the form of renovating houses, digging wells and latrines, and establishing community gardens; educational programs and self-employment help were also launched. The organizer was D. A. Abeysekera, an employee of the Sri Lankan Department of Rural Development, who while searching for solutions for this kind of community coined the term Shramadana , meaning 'gift of labour', to describe the type of help expected from volunteers. The village of Kathaluwa was to be the first beneficiary of this joint work. Ahangamage Tudor Ariyaratne, then a young teacher at Nalanda College in Colombo, led a group of teachers and students who participated in what he called an "educational experiment." The success of the "experiment", repeated in other villages, and developing independently from the Department of Rural Development, led to the creation of the largest development-promoting organization in Sri Lanka - The Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement . Ten basic needs Activists led by Ariyaratne tried to meet the real needs of the villagers. To this end, they conducted research in 600 villages, asking residents to list their ten most important needs, in order from most urgent to least important. The survey resulted in a list of the following needs: Clean environment Adequate supply of water Clothing Nutritious food Shelter Health