Michael Eavis has donated more than £63,000 to aid tsunami-affected families in Indonesia. The Glastonbury organiser presented a cheque to the charity Muslim Aid yesterday (30 April) as a tribute to a friend who died in the disaster. The donation, taken from money from the 2005 festival, will go towards building homes in Aceh and has been organised in partnership with international relief agency Muslim Aid, who has spent more than £18 million building hundreds of houses for tsunami survivors in the Indian Ocean rim countries of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Somalia and India.

The project was managed by Arabella Churchill, the grand-daughter of prime minister Winston Churchill, and who runs the theatre and circus fields at the festival. Arabella recently visited Aceh to run performance workshops for tsunami-affected children, featuring juggling performances, badge-making, juggling workshops, and large-scale parachute games.

“We were most fortunate in finding Muslim Aid, a major British and Australian Charity, who were doing sterling work in and around Banda Aceh, particularly in the field of housing,” said Arabella Churchill. “Thousands benefited from [our] 2006 and 2007 tours, giving a great deal of pleasure to children, their families and their communities, especially those who are still having to live in barracks more than two years after the tsunami, and who are badly in need of some cheering-up.

“We have been extremely impressed by the excellent houses, both brick and cement and traditional wooden, that Muslim Aid is building,” she continued. “We are so pleased that Michael has accepted our recommendation, and when we return to Aceh, we very much look forward to seeing the 16 permanent Muslim Aid houses all completed and occupied by families.”

Chowdhury Mueen Uddin, treasurer of the Muslim Aid Trustees, accepted the donation on behalf of the international relief agency, and thanked Michael Eavis for the donation.

More info: www.muslimaid.org