Extra Cover is counting the cost of the worst flooding in 14 years
Last weekend (28th May 2017) the South West of Sri Lanka was devastated by floods. Over 200 people died and tens of thousands have been displaced having had their houses wrecked
Extra Cover’s 28 schools and other projects are right in the middle of the worst effected areas. We have a property (soon to be a vocational training center) that is normally at least 4 meters higher than the river bank, it was only inches from being ruined (picture below taken from the Extra Cover property, normally a view of paddy fields and tea plants!). Many people in the area were not so lucky, they had to be evacuated before they could collect any of their positions and are now returning to some very depressing scenes.
It is still early days and Newton has not been able to get round to all the schools, some are still cut off, others have had no electricity for a week, so they have no way of charging mobile phones to make contact. So far he has witnessed a few of the schools that are in a bad way, flood water washed through them leaving behind a trail of destruction, 6 inches of muck on the floor and nearly all resources ruined. Years of our help has been washed away in one weekend of dire weather.
This is all so sad, but the good news is that as far as we know everyone we know is safe and that most of the buildings are intact and OK, so it just means we will have to clean them up, re-decorate and slowly fill them again with new resources. Wells are going to have to be purified, or in some cases re dug where they have become too dirty, playgrounds rebuilt, toilets (and cess pits) cleared out and most importantly children fed. There is a severe shortage of food, much has been ruined or simply washed away. It’s going to be a tough few months for so many people.
How can we all help?
Extra Cover will do all it can, there is endless help that is needed, far more than we can afford, so your help is needed more than ever. Please, if you can, go to http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/srilankafloodrelief and make a donation ( or go to https://www.extracover.org.uk/ for more options). We appreciate that many people have already been incredibly generous recently (our Sweden walk and golf day) but we didn’t see this coming and we need to be able to do as much as we can. Any help you can give would be amazing.
Thank you
Matthew, Jill , Robert and Newton
https://www.extracover.org.uk/
Lakindu (a young boy who we have been helping with medicine and doctors support for a weak heart) and his family had a close shave when a earth slide crashed into the side of their house, destroying the toilet, the house seems OK but the earth above it seems unstable so we need to re-locate them if we can.
This is Mapalagama SEN school for children with disabilities, 4 feet of water washed through, we only finished this a few months ago, it was a bright wonderful classroom for 12 children who have had little or no opprtunity to go to school before. It is so sad to see after all the hard work of Nikki and Brian Cannon and friends… they will have to go back for another 6 months!!
Sepalika built herself a small store to sell the wonderful things she had made in the Extra Cover vocational training school for young adults with disabilities, it has now been washed away, we want to make sure she gets up an running as soon as she can. We can imagine imagine how upsetting this was for her, it may have been small but it was such an achievement for her to be doing this, we hope it has not traumatized her too much.