On Matthew and Jill’s latest visit to Sri Lanka, they had the pleasure of meeting a little 9 year old girl, Wasana, and her family.

Wasana was born with no legs, and has spent her life getting around on her hands, by swinging her body too and fro. Has this held her back? Not at all, she is thriving at school, apparently a bright girl who lights up any classroom.

Her father takes her to school every day, she sits on his bike’s handlebars, and he stays with her so he can tend to her toiletry needs, she has to be so careful when her body is so close to the ground. This has left the family struggling as he cannot get work. So they have asked Extra Cover to supply a wheelchair for her at school and an adapted washroom and toilet for her exclusive use. For Wasana to grow and become independent, as any girl would want to, this project is absolutely vital for her, so Extra Cover will be raising funds to make her dream become a reality.

We have visited their house and have planned where we can build her washroom, an occupational therapist has recommended what is needed and we hope to have her assessed for a wheelchair and have the washroom built by our next trip in February.

Pelessa School, a “difficult” school north of Ahangama, is something of an oddity, in that there are some twenty children in both Grades 1 and 2, and then no other children except three boys in Grade 5. Though small, the school had an air of true purpose about it when Robert and Newton visited this July, and it was a “no brainer” to agree for every child to have a daily “meal” as of the start of next term in September.

Half a dozen members of Brighton College’s “Trip 2” spent a thoroughly enjoyable morning teaching the children (the Grade 5 boys were allowed to spend some time in the Grade 2 classroom and show off their superior knowledge) and it was during the morning that Robert addressed an unusual request from the principal and teachers.

It appears that the girls, when using the toilet, have been receiving unwanted attention from “bad men” who find their way onto the school premises via the thick surrounding jungle. Would Extra Cover be willing to put up a fence to deter such activity, the staff asked?
Robert suggested an alternative and less expensive option; that the toilet block be re-ordered (a passageway blocked up, a doorway created) that would mean that no activity could be seen from the forest. The principal agreed to investigate.

The Sri Lankan education authorities classify certain schools as “difficult” – referring primarily to their accessibility – and “Upper Homodola” is amongst them. And with good reason. The only way to get there from the market town of Udugama is by tuk-tuk, lurching up the side of a large hill for some thirty minutes (on a dry day), negotiating boulders and patches of road that have been washed away in the most recent rains.

The school itself is basic; in effect two large buildings, and when Robert visited there this July he immediately noticed that there was no playground equipment. Unusually the school goes only up to Grade 8 (approximately age 13), with only the most able finishing their education at a “senior school” down in Udugama. The other children, it is understood, find employment on the plantations. Many of the children live in “line-houses”, very basic accommodation from the days of British imperialism, and indeed the whole village had an air of being stuck in something of a time warp.

As is so often the case, the principal, when asked, revealed that many of his pupils arrive without much food in their stomachs, and Robert immediately agreed that Extra Cover would fund a daily “meal” for the entire student body, comprising just over 100 pupils. In the knowledge that some of the region’s most deprived children will soon be better fed, the teeth-jarring and bone-rattling journey back down the hillside was no difficulty at all.

Click Here To Hear THe Interview

 

 

Matthew and Robert were invited to the Lords Test match, England versus Sri Lanka to talk about their continuing work with Extra Cover and had the pleasure of being interviewed about the charity by Jonathan Agnew during the tea interval.

 

 

It was broadcast live on Test Match Special which goes out to cricket lovers all over the world either on BBC radio 5 locally or BBC world service radio globally.

 

 

They had a surreal afternoon sitting in the media pod at Lords, watching the cricket and chatting to the likes of Phil Tufnell, Henry Blofeld and Ed Smith .

 

 

 

 

Lakshman and his family are now proud owners of a new house. On Wednesday 12th of march, Matthew travelled out to have the honour of being there for the opening. The whole village seemed to be there, hundreds of schoolchildren and all the people who helped build their wonderful new abode. to show what high regard Extra Cover is now held, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Chandimal Weerakkody sent his parents along to represent him on the day.

Extra Cover paid for the majority of the build, but it was a real community effort and many people helped in any way they could. “We are always a little concerned that there would be jealousy when we help in this way as there are so many people living in very poor conditions, but in this case everyone was delighted for Lakshman and his family, their need was quite extreme” said Matthew ” it was almost like a scene out of DIY SOS”.

It is incredible to think that Extra Cover only started fundraising to help Lakshman in early December, by the end of March a great new house finished and handed over and the whole family are almost in shock. “Lakshman and his wife Nalani where both understandably emotional, the chances of something like this happening to them was so remote, they could not quite believe it, it was truly wonderful to just be a part of it. Thanks must go to all the people back in England who have made this possible by being so generous”.

Just to make things even better we organised to send Lakshman to the Army prosthetic hospital where he started the process to get a new prosthetic leg. It is going to take a little while for him to have Physio and work done on improving his damaged leg so the Prosthesis will have a chance to fit and work well for the future.

Last October Robert underwent surgery for kidney cancer and, thanks in the main to the skill of the wonderful NHS staff in Brighton, the operation was a total success. To mark his return to full health, he tramped over the South Downs in early March from Brighton College to the town of Lewes some nine miles away.

 

 

And he had company – a group comprising pupils, their parents and some fellow teachers (and their dogs!) joined him on what turned out to be a simply glorious Spring day.

 

 
What could have been a real slog turned out to be a lovely (if tiring, for Robert!) Sunday walk. More importantly, more than £3,200 was raised for Extra Cover, which, among many other things, will help children like Hayshan (see below).

To the casual observer, the newest classrooms at Navungala and Panangala schools in the Galle Education District look no different to any other. There are the standard-issue tables and chairs and there are the examples of the pupils’ work pinned to the walls. There is the plastic-covered register wilting in the heat on the teacher’s desk and there are the brightly-coloured school bags hanging on hooks near the door.
But any closer inspection will reveal something really rather special. The pupils. The pupils all have special education needs.

 

 

In what is something of a first in the area(in all our travels we have certainly not come across anything similar) children with learning difficulties are attending state schools specifically tailored to their needs.

Thanks in no small part to the efforts of Mr H.G. Chandrasiri, principal of Nawala School (which Extra Cover has been involved with for more then five years) these two SEN units were opened in January 2014.
The arrangement is simple. The Sri Lankan government funds the costs of the specialist teacher. Extra Cover pays for everything else – the teaching assistant, all the classroom resources (stationery, posters, toys etc), transport for the pupils to and from school (via tuk-tuk), uniforms, food and modified toilets.

 

NAVUNGALA

 

 

The Special Education Unit at Navungala School (where, amongst other things, Extra Cover pays for breakfast for the all the “mainstream” pupils, installed a fence and has repaired a stairway and playground equipment) currently has twelve children. Some have Down’s Syndrome, others are on the autistic spectrum while others have cerebral palsy.
Eight have never been to school in their lives before.
During our visit there in February 2014, we met the most wonderful children, all of whom were so excited about “their” school. The story of twin brothers Hayshan and Hashan is presented on a separate page. The classroom was pretty bare when we arrived and we determined from the teacher what other resources were most desired. Accordingly, over the next couple of days, we brought in Pampers, pens and pencils, mattresses, plastic toys, exercise books, drawing pins etc and purchased a CD player and a metal storage cabinet, to be delivered later in the week.

 

 

PANANGALA

To the Northeast of the Galle Education District, near the town of Udugama, lies the village of Panangala. The new unit for SEN children in the school there isn’t hard to spot … it is a very bright pink.

To enable children with mobility issues (as well as learning difficulties) to come to school, Extra Cover has paid for a fifty-yard long, six-foot wide access road to be built, and for a modified toilet to be installed “en-suite” to the classroom.
The pupils here have a range of learning difficulties, and their pleasure at being at school is palpable. Music is an essential ingredient in their education and, as for Navungala, our visit in February 2014 resulted in the purchase of a CD player.
Every time we visit Extra Cover schools, Matthew Jill and Robert experience at least half a dozen “only in Sri Lanka” moments. Buying the CD player was one such event. Four highly-educated professional men (two school principals, the ‘zonal director for non-formal education’ and Newton) spent at least half an hour weighing up the merits of the only CD player for sale in a nearby shop. Finally, mercifully, they agreed to buy it.
We also bought a metal cabinet to store the player, exercise books and other valuable items.

The venture into providing education for children with learning and physical difficulties is a pioneering one, and will be a steep learning curve. How we measure the success of the two schools (how do you value the immeasurable?), how we pay for the schools’ “school buses” – tuk-tuks travelling some 60km each day – and how we prevent ourselves from becoming too personally involved in the lives of these lovely, caring, vulnerable kids – the marginalized of the marginalized – is going to be an interesting challenge.
But there is no doubt that what Extra Cover is doing at these two SEN units is powerful, life-affirming and life-changing … and not just for the pupils.

Over the past few years Extra Cover has been considering how it might help disabled school-age children (both physically disabled and learning disabled) in the Galle educational district. For many in Sri Lanka, children with disabilities are considered at best a burden, and it is certainly uncommon to see them at school. Our research has shown that most children with disabilities simply stay at home, despite a legal requirement (as in the UK) that they be educated by the state. There is no bespoke institution for such children in the area, and so we have been investigating whether we might provide such a resource.

A few miles from Gonadeniya School is a school that has spare classroom space, and its principal is willing for us, in theory, to develop one classroom into a “special needs” environment.

A local resident, meanwhile, has identified all the disabled children in the vicinity, and she is currently visiting their families to promote the idea and to ascertain transportation needs. The Department of Education, meanwhile, has confirmed it would provide a specialist teacher if the project ever got off the ground.
It is an exciting venture – one that requires the willingness and trust of a number of parties – but if successful, would be a major new aspect of the charity’s educational programme.

It has been several years since Extra Cover has undertaken the building of a house. Our focus has been specifically on education for quite a while, but when it came to Hiruni’s house, we had to make an exception.

Hiruni was a pupil at the now closed Mahalapitiya School and won everybody’s heart with her bubbly nature and lopsided grin.

Hers was a story we had heard before, but exacerbated by tragedy: her mother Priyanthi had three children, all with different men (all who have since left her) but the middle child drowned when he fell into the village well – a well that we had suggested should be protected by a fence. And when the school closed, Hiruni now has to travel, at some expense, to a school half and hour away. Times are tough for Hiruni’s family.
Though immaculately tidy, their wattle and daub house is a shack and about to collapse. Newton confirmed that there was no opportunity for Priyanthi to move elsewhere, and that the situation was indeed dire. And so we agreed to build a simple, functional house on the small piece of land adjacent to their current hovel.

This July, while Robert was out in Sri Lanka with the Brighton College pupils, we built the house. We hired Damika, the self-styled “boss man” of the village, to oversee construction, and he ensured that the bulk of the work – from the arrival of the digger to lay the foundations, to making the main door from a mahogany tree in the garden – was done in less than four weeks.

A small extension to accommodate a kitchen is yet to be completed, but Hiruni and her family now have a sturdy house to call their own.

While the main school in Mahalapitiya may have closed, the privately run Pre-(or Montessori) School has been full to capacity for the past ten years.

The principal is a driven woman – driven to give the youngsters in her village the best possible educations, and so it was with a heavy heart that she announced that unless parents paid the monthly Rs 500 (£2.50) fee on time, she would be forced to close this July. The parents, it seemed, simply did not have the cash.





When Extra Cover learned of this sad state of affairs, Robert went along to visit. It is a simply wonderful place. Soon thereafter a day-house at Brighton College agreed to pay for the two teachers’ salaries (£50 pcm) for a year, and Extra Cover has agreed to fund the provision of a daily nutritious meal and other basic resources (e.g. a small cooker and a canister of propane gas).

There are twenty children at the school – twenty children whose future is now brighter than their parents (and school principal) could have hoped.