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.
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 […]
Special Education for children with disabilities In January 2014, Extra Cover started 2 ‘Special Education’ units for children with disabilities, the video below was kindly made by Rob Powell of BBC south today when he visited in October and shows how well they are now working. 24 children now have the chance to attend school, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The skies over Southern Sri Lanka were unusually overcast for February, but this was something of a blessing for Matthew and Robert, as their recent trip to the region involved a significant amount of walking and climbing. We visited nearly all the “Extra Cover” schools, including Watogala (where we saw children enjoying their new playground […]
