A little bit of background to this post:

The Asian tsunami on the 26th December 2004 killed over 40,000 people in Sri Lanka. Thousands of those missing were never recovered. Many of the small, coastal villages in southern and eastern Sri Lanka were completely destroyed. Over a million people were left homeless. Thousands were destitute. “Rebuilding Sri Lanka” has been active since the day of the disaster and we continue to provide support, rehabilitation, nutrition, education and shelter to those affected by the disaster.

http://www.rebuildingsrilanka.org.uk

Today we felt privileged to be able to visit a few of the schools funded by the charity. As soon as Clare (the charity operations director) found out we were visiting Sri Lanka, she offered us her house to stay in and said we should absolutely visit the project. We jumped at the chance.

Education is really important, especially in the rural areas where children can sometimes be held back to work in the fields with their family harvesting cinnamon or rice. It’s not that the family doesn’t want them to be educated but they can’t afford it; they have to sometimes chose between putting food on the table or sending the children to school.

The first school we visited was a pre-school for 3 and 4 year olds in a town. The classes have up to 40 children in. The children were really sweet, some of them so tiny, and the teachers were just lovely. We were greeted with a homemade card and some flowers each and got to visit each classroom, where they sang a little song each, before having a look around the grounds. It’s a relatively modern school with good facilities. There are also small libraries onsite that are available to the locals, with a mixture of English and Sinhalese books – all funded by the charity. Ajith (the projects manager) informed us that there are over 100,000 books spread over several branches of libraries. For people who cannot afford official education these books can be an amazing source of knowledge.

If I remember correctly, he told us that for G.C.S.E level it costs about 1000 rupees (about £4.50) a month for each class per pupil. So if you’re just looking at the basics of English, Maths and Science that’s 3000 rupees (£13.50) a month just for tuition, not including all the extras of transport, books, uniforms etc. It may not seem that much to you reading this but it is money that some people just don’t have.

The second school we went to we had to reach by tuk tuk down country tracks in a much more rural area. We were greeted once again by homemade cards and a little performance by each of the grades (they had aged 5 to 10 years old). They either had a song to sing or a couple of sentences in English to say. In fact, it was their English teacher who gave the introduction. We could already tell from the outset that this school had a great deal less resources. She informed us that most of the children came from ‘broken’ families, that is perhaps living with grandparents as their mum and dad have to go and work as labourers too far away, or perhaps the dad has left; they are all living in poverty. Some of the children didn’t even have shoes. Not that they seem to have minded about not having shoes, they were all so smiley and were giving us inquisitive stares; especially at Ike’s hair! Still, she nearly had me in tears with what she was saying.

As a result of a small bit of fundraising we managed to get together £101, which translates roughly into 25,000 rupees. We can’t thank you enough if you donated, whether it be to the suitcases of second hand clothing we took out, or some money into the pot. They were so, so grateful. We managed to buy some school supplies out here and even got a discount from the stationary shop so we could donate the rest of the money to the project. We got things like exercise books, crayons, pencils, sharpeners. We actually got asked to hand them out on the small stage area, which was rather overwhelming as when the children come up, as a normal way of saying thank you for them they kneel down and put their hands into a prayer position at your feet before getting up and saying a big ‘thank you’ in English.

We were then treated to an amazing traditional lunch of rice and curry and had a long chat with Ajith about the school system in Sri Lanka.

Clare and team are doing an amazing job and should be really proud of the work they have achieved. Please take a moment to check out their website and have a look at Clare’s Instagram for some lovely yogi / charity stuff.

Love and peace to you all ✌🏼