Letters & Committee Papers

Below is one of the first drafts of the trust deed created for outlining the purpose, aims, and management of the Disaster Fund Management Committee. This initial draft includes no signatures and several annotations. Other versions are included in the collection including a signed copy: 

Like the Aberfan Disaster Fund trust deed, below are early drafts of constitutions relating to the Aberfan Community Association and Aberfan Memorial Garden committee:

A letter was sent out to residents of Aberfan a year after the Disaster to assist with town planning arrangements, specifically on the early concepts of the Community Centre, asking for responses to an attached questionnaire. The questions focused on people's family, housing, employment, and leisure activities: 

Another questionnaire was created by Dr. Colin Murray Parkes, focusing more on residents' mental health in the aftermath of the Disaster. It asked several questions on the nature of distress that individuals felt while also asking for comparatives on how people felt in certain regards before or after the Disaster. It is uncertain if this was sent to residents directly or was created as a concept: 

These documents relate to the work of Tŷ Toronto, a project established in Aberfan in 1967 from donations received by the Welsh community in Toronto to help those in Aberfan after the Disaster. It shows Tŷ Toronto in its earlier stages, highlighting the aim of their work generally while giving consideration to the establishment of the Community Association:

Letters of support to the ‘Lara’ Fund, established in 1969 after bush fires had destroyed the Lara Lake School building in Australia, show a financial contribution from the community of Aberfan to the rebuilding efforts of the school. The students of Lara Lake had previously sent letters of support and financial aid in the aftermath of the Disaster, commencing what would be a historic link between Aberfan and Lara (This can be later seen in the Headway issue ‘Maintaining the ’Lara' Link' printed in May, 1970, found in Printed Material):

A letter of thanks was also found in response to the donation of clothes and money to the ‘Save the Children Fund’ from the community of Aberfan (titled ‘The Sicilian Appeal’ in the letter itself), established in the aftermath of the 1968 Belice earthquake in Sicily on the 14th of January which resulted in potentially 400 deaths while causing widespread homelessness due to the magnitude of destruction caused: