After assisting a fishing community at Balapitiya during the first year following formation, the trustees of the charity felt that it would be fairer to concentrate our efforts on community projects.
This would effectively spread the aid further by virtue of the numbers we are able to help as well as extend the timeframe, as the aid provided would be available for future beneficiaries.
We have concentrated our efforts in restoring a rural school that had been used as a refugee camp and assisting a home for the disabled during several projects being delivered by others.
Dental Surgery at Madampa
Having now completed the refurbishment works at the Sumana School we are pleased to confirm that the works to the dental surgery sited at the school are now complete.
The surgery was in a sorry state having no water, decrepit furniture & equipment and defective electrical installations.
We have now renewed the windows and wiring and have completely redecorated the whole clinic.
We have provided equipment, including a specialist reclining chair, instruments and consumables, all available locally from Chinese suppliers; the costs were around £5,000.
Work in Schools
As part of Buildaid’s ongoing schools programme in Sri Lanka we are pleased to confirm that in 2008 we were able to completely refurbish a mixed infants, juniors and senior school in Pinkanda, assist in the completion of the construction of a pre-school in Hettigoda, completely build a new rural school for 32 children in Akkara-Vissa as well as refurbish, modernise and equip a dental surgery at the Kullegoda School. This clinic serves 10 schools (8000 children) in the district and hopefully will be the first of many more such initiatives.
Further schools completely refurbished in 2008 included the comprehensive schools at Pathiraja and Berethduwa and the supply of furniture to an independent school near Kalutara.
Houses at the fishing community at Brahmanwatta in Balapitiya
Our first project in Sri Lanka was to rebuild seven completely damaged houses and repair several other severely damaged dwellings in the fishing hamlet of Brahmanwatta, a coastal community in Balapitiya. By employing a direct workforce, by buying materials locally and with the help of the local community, we were able to provide much-needed homes for numerous displaced families. We are pleased to confirm that this project has now been successfully completed.
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The Sumana Vidalaya School in Kulleegoda Sri Lanka
The school, although not damaged by the tsunami, was used for about six months as a refugee camp for displaced fishing families who lived near the sea. During this time it sustained significant damage to its fixtures and fittings. The school provides co-educational teaching to 850 children between the ages of 5 and 18 and has around 50 teaching staff. The school had no drinking water, only four toilets, a lethal electrical installation and numerous health and safety hazards. The total absence of any security measures resulted in the theft of anything with any value left unattended overnight.
Having carried out a full evaluation, we set about putting matters right and one year later we are happy to confirm that we have completely rewired the school, providing new safe lighting and power and numerous fans to cool the children working in the equatorial sun.
We have also constructed a new toilet block for the girls comprising 12 new closets; provided a bore hole and tube well which provides clean potable water on the site for the first time in 40 years; installed security grilles and doors to all classrooms which are now locked at night keeping the school’s equipment secure.
We also provided new guardrails and balustrades where we identified dangerous fall and trip hazards and finished off with some new front gates to keep out unauthorised personnel.
We have completed this project, having obtained locally manufactured desks, chairs and benches for the infants, juniors, seniors and teachers and painted the entire facility inside and out to create a bright and welcoming environment for the children.
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