The mission of Extra Cover is to help some of Sri Lanka’s poorest school children grow up with hope. It provides basic essentials – from food and clean water to toilets and textbooks – to twenty four extremely remote village schools in the southern rainforest area. As funds allow, it also builds extra classrooms, installs playground equipment, runs tea and cinnamon-growing cooperatives, and oversees vocational schools.
The long-serving principal of the Tamil plantation school at Talgaswalla has had enough of the commute from Galle and has announced his intention to work closer to home. For 27 years Talgaswalla has been a beacon of a school – always well-kept, with polite and appreciative pupils – and much of its success should be […]
Mapalagama SEN is currently thriving under the watchful care of Miss Dilrukshi. The current pupil body has some significant physical, as well as intellectual difficulties. One boy uses a standing chair, and a few pupils could benefit from a stationary exercise bike to strengthen their muscles. Thishantha says Hellabeem, the community of wheelchair-using boys which […]
Still buzzing after their recent trip to Hambantota. The students at Smile in Unwatuna are now enjoying new Singer machines for their sewing needs, and new Juki machines for making simple footwear like flip-flops. Extra Cover has also paid for a number of advertising signs to be hung around the town, as the quality of […]
From the very first year of Extra Cover, when we bought some drums for the tsunami-ravaged school at Dikwella, we have delighted in the elemental part that music plays in Sri Lankan school culture. Even in the small and remote school of Pilagoda all children are required to learn to play an instrument – in […]
Matthew and Robert could write a small, learned article on Sri Lankan children’s playground slides – including in-depth analysis on angle, smoothness, and likelihood of its users ending up requiring medical attention owing to loose jagged pieces of metal. The new slide at Ganegama School is something of a classic – sturdy, safe, and secure […]
Only in Sri Lanka would pupils from one school cheerfully wear the uniform of another. Robert visited Bemboda school in October 2024 and was charmed by the sweet faces of the Pre-Prep children but rather bemused by the fact that their red and yellow uniforms state they are from Yatalamatta. The two places are not […]
