Week Three in Sri Lanka

The Sarath de Mel Memorial Day dominated the third week of our trip to Sri Lanka.    Sarath de Mel was, until he tragically passed away in early 2007, our greatest friend in Sri Lanka.  We were with him on the day of the 2004 Tsunami and it was through him that we started most of our projects.   He helped us buy our first boat, and from then on managed everything on the ground for us.

When he passed away far too young , we decided that we would have an annual day at the school in his honour.  We chose February 15^th, his birthday.

Each year, we give certificates of achievement to the children at the school as well as new uniforms and shoes. The new prefects are given their jackets and the class monitors, and head boy and head girl are appointed.    It is a very special day for the school.  This year on February 18^th we were accompanied by Bernard and Beryl Brown, long time visitors to Sri Lanka, our good friend David Hoole and Kiran and Sanjeev from London. 

Don pinning a prefect's badge to a brand new jacket

Shehan and his mother Lynette handing out the shoes

There were several speeches including one from Sarath’s son Shehan   He was accompanied at the school by his Mother. . Lynette.  We were also lucky because a waiter at our hotel was an old boy from the school and he was able to tell the children how important education had been in enabling him to find a job.

Certificates of Achievement

An enormous amount of work goes into making this day a success.  The children have to be measured for their uniforms and shoes, certificates have to be printed, prizes bought and then each shoe box and uniform pack labelled with the individual children’s names.  Somehow it all works out.

On the morning of that day, we had visited the children’s nursery where we also distribute shoes.

  

The Nursery School children with their new shoes

The next day we went to visit the nursery school in the jungle which is run by a Buddhist Monk.  He splits his time between our local temple and his original village where the nursery is situated. We gave out more shoes and watched the children perform for us before they played in the playground which had been renovated with money from our great friend Toby Green and his boys.

The new playground

New shoes for the new intake of pupils

The Jungle Nursery

David, Sanjay and Kiran had all left us by the end of the week. More to come with the long awaited arrival of Steve and Gav!