Lucy (Sri Lanka)

I visited in March 2005, 3 months after the devastating Boxing Day Tsunami. I spent 6 weeks volunteering in, firstly, a temple school and then in a government school, teaching English. Lastly, I distributed tsunami aid at weekends and for the last few days of my trip in some of the devastated regions.

Sithumina School

Many of the children I taught are fatherless. These children are poorer than I could have imagined, living without water or toilet facilities, in single room huts with their entire family.

In this community, the school is their glimmer of hope. Some students walk long distances through mud and forest in the heat and rain to get to school, never wanting to miss a class. The school provides all students with a good education with English, science, gardening to grow food and dance classes. Attendance from the poorest children is now improved since local sponsors began providing a midday meal for the 180 students. Uniforms and shoes are also donated, giving the children a great sense of pride in their school. When I first visited there were a lot barefoot children with ill fitting hand me down uniforms from years ago.

The Principle does what she can and cares a great deal about the childrens’ welfare and education. The school is the happiest I have ever known, due to the students. If one has a stub of pencil and their friend has none, they will break their own pencil in half and share it with their friend. If one has a biscuit, they will always give you half. Every day I was overwhelmed by the selflessness of these amazing, happy children and they were desperate to give whatever they could, despite having almost nothing for themselves.

They have had tough upbringings, we cannot begin to compare to our own. Some children are abandoned as their parent cannot cope. If the children have no father, the mother will be able to earn between 28 and 90 pence a day.

One 13 year old boy, in particular, will always stand out in my memories. He would always walk with me to class and never missed a lesson. He even came to some that were for different grades, just to sit with me. Always smiling, I could not imagine his face without a broad grin. He was my top student with an amazing language capability for his age. I remember visiting his tiny house for sweet tea and ‘oil cakes’. The main room is almost empty, with just some chairs and a table but there is also a small bedroom and kitchen. The house is full of smiling, hospitable relatives who all live nearby. The idea of ever moving house is alien to most Sri Lankans. They simply couldn’t afford it.

I was heartbroken to leave the region but about 2 weeks later a friend contacted me to say that this little boy’s father had died of a sudden heart attack. I abandoned my travel plans and went to visit the family the next day. The little boy greeted me crying and I barely recognized his face. His mother too had lost her smile and wailed at me in her native language, Sinhala. I remember sitting with her infront of the body feeling totally helpless and fearful for the future of this loving family.

What would happen to them now, without a father? What would happen to this bright young boy? How would his mother cope? Would she be able to find work? Even if she did, as a woman, she could not earn much to support her two sons and herself.

So I decided to sponsor him, as a reward for being my best student. I opened the bank account two days later, after the funeral. Just my modest sponsorship was enough to totally overwhelm the humble family and bring back those smiles for a while. They now have hope for the future as this clever child can continue his education with all the resources, books and uniform essentials to allow him to go to school. He may not have a father but his future is bright. With his language skills, he should be able to get a good job, earning more than the average Sri Lankan and provide for his own family in the future.

The sponsorship program, sparked from this situation, has grown and developed since 2005 and now has a strong program running to help the children at Sithumina School, Bowallawatta, Kandy with £5/month. Other students have also been included from the area, a school playground has been built as well as a school, child daycare centre and various other small scale, education and family based projects to help communities near Kandy.

Douglas King is a former Education Minister, English Teacher, Mondo Associate and all round saint who now teaches voluntarily and ensures that every penny donated to Sri Lanka through Mondo Challenge Foundation goes directly to where it should without ever knowingly pausing for breath!

Current Projects

I now enjoy being an ambassador for the Mondo Challenge Foundation and meeting with Anthony Lunch, the tireless inspiration who keeps everything going. We plan to set up, run and eventually to expand a new centre of education to bring hope, prospects and an end to the cycle of poor education for poor communities. We hope this will become a model for the future of education in Sri Lanka.

We already have a building close to the town of Kandy and in a semi-rural area with many very low-income Sinhala and Tamil families. In January 2011, the centre plans to have a pre-school with 50 children ages 3-5. These children will be 50% Sinhala (Buddhist and Christian) and 50% Tamil, mainly Hindu. Sinhala, Tamil and English languages will be treated equally as will the cultures of the three communities. No other similar centre is based on this integration.

The children’s centre will provide a high standard of pre-school to the children to ensure they receive maximum educational and social advantage. The children come from “disadvantaged” homes, where housing and nutritional standards are very low due to poverty. Some of the children are likely to be living with grandparents or in a single parent family for various reasons. By giving these children the best possible start in Early Years education they are more likely to succeed in their future education and lives.

The Centre will also offer teacher training provision to girls from similar families who have left school with poor prospects of future employment. Very few of the parents of the children could afford the basic monthly fee of ten pounds, when wage levels for the unskilled and for menial jobs is so low and there is a high percentage of unemployment in these families.

To be able to enroll target children into the school, we need to find sponsors for each child at ten pounds a month. Sponsors will be kept informed about the child through regular reports and photographs. We have been fortunate to have received a donation of 5000 pounds to equip the centre with basic furniture and supplies.

The Centre will employ a well qualified head teacher, who is able to speak all three key languages. The overall direction of the Centre will be guided by Douglas King, a highly qualified consultant and advisor in Early Childhood Education who will give his services without payment.

Various other plans are envisaged for the Centre such as activities at weekends and during holiday periods. A strong link will be made to involve parents and carers in aspects of Child Development that will be beneficial for their children.