OVER Christmas 2004 Mary and Graham Storrie wanted to escape the painful memories of their daughter Rosie May's murder the year before.
They were in the Maldives when the Boxing Day tsunami struck. After being picked up from the Maldives they were taken to Sri Lanka.
"It was heartbreaking for us," said Rosie May's father, Graham Storrie. "Even the year after was so bad. There were still people living in tents and very little infrastructure had been rebuilt. The whole communities were just so broken."
But they channelled their own grief into positive action.
The Rosie May Children's Home was opened in Boossa, Sri Lanka, on December 28 2008, initially with five girls, all orphaned by the tsunami.
Two years later there are 16 girls, including four sets of reunited sisters. The home concentrates on reuniting siblings because orphanages in Sri Lanka are usually segregated by age, meaning many sisters never see each other again.
The youngest girl is four, the oldest 14, and they will all stay at the home until they are 18.
"The transformation is absolutely amazing, particularly with the oldest girls that have been in there since the beginning," said Mrs Storrie.
"They were so quiet and scared and wouldn't make eye contact and were wetting the bed and screaming and wouldn't eat. Now they are happy and confident."
The children touchingly call themselves the Rosie May Girls. Among the UK volunteers to have travelled to the home is Rosie May's best friend, Roanna Doleman, now 18 and studying for A-levels.
Mrs Storrie said: "She has just raised money ever since. Now that she has turned 18 she wants to go over next year on her own."
Volunteers who help at the children's home also go into the school to help. A volunteer induction day is being held in Bottesford on January 22. Details at www.rosie-may.com.
The Rosie May Memorial Fund, which exceeded �250,000 in November, still welcomes donations and people can also sponsor the girls at the children's home for �5 a week.
Rosie May would now be 17. Every December 28, friends and family remember her by releasing fire lanterns from Beacon Hill, near Bottesford.
A talented ballerina, she was smothered at a house party in Normanton on December 28 2003 and taken to hospital in Sheffield where she died on December 30.
A jury convicted Paul Smith, 18 at the time of her death, of murder and he was given a life sentence.
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