In 2004, the deadliest tsunami in recorded history struck in the Indian Ocean, killing over 225,000 people and displacing another 1.7 million. You may have read about the quite remarkable response of Matthew Hansford (2&3 South, 1978-1983) to one of the worst affected areas in Sri Lanka. His son had finished a cricket tour just days before the disaster which motivated Matthew to travel out to Galle to see how he could help, and he found an area in desperate need. Matthew took up the challenge, founded the charity ‘Extra Cover’, and has since raised over half a million pounds to rebuild the lives of many children, their families and their schools both on the coast and also in poor inland regions, as you can read below.
“It’s been an amazing start to 2017: not only are we continuing to help 28 schools feed and support about 1000 children every school day plus continuing to run three units for children with disabilities, but we have recently taken on one more tiny school, have offered a family new hope and have at last secured a property that Extra Cover can call home.
Following the huge success of the Vocational Training Centre for disabled young adults started in 2016, we decided to develop another, but this time to help the students learn about agriculture and how to grow crops such as tea, pepper, cinnamon, fruit and vegetables. We were told the best way to do this was to buy a piece of land. Ideally there would be a house that could be a base for Extra Cover to work from. In March we signed for a beautiful property called Suhada (translated as ‘friendship’), well inland from all the tourist regions, in the area of Mapalagama. It has 1.5 acres of land, two houses and some slightly unloved tea and pepper plants. Give us a few months and we will have a renovated house with an office, two volunteer rooms and a second Vocational Training Centre. At the same time we will replant tea, pepper and cinnamon aiming to be self-sufficient within a year or two, so a neutral cost to Extra Cover. We have builders in already to get the basics ready, but aim to raise funds over the next six months to complete the project; we can’t wait to see the results.
Amarasinge is a tiny pre-school with 22 tiny children, all happily coming every day but with little or no food in their tummies, and virtually no resources to learn or play with. We visited in March and offered food to be provided every day
plus stationery and games to liven up their days. It is a great joy to help these children, something that all who generously help us, make possible.
We also visited a family living in the most wretched conditions, three of the four children have disabilities, as does the father, so the mother has to provide for everyone… she looked exhausted! They live in a wreck of a hut, all six of them living and sleeping in a dark 6 foot by 5 foot space. To make things worse they live in constant worry that enormous boulders which hover on the hill above could come crashing down on them at any time – it is only a matter of time! So we have found a new piece of land and will be locating them to a newly built house as soon as we have funds. With a golf day and a sponsored walk across Sweden (100 miles in four days!) taking place soon [and now completed – Ed.], it won’t be long before they can be moved to a bigger and safer wonderful new home.
If you want to find out more about Extra Cover why not try this link to a video we made last year: https://player.vimeo.com/video/164072122
If you would like to find out how to support please go to www.extracover.org.uk
Post Script
Extra Cover is counting the cost of the worst flooding in 14 years
On 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 http://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.”
Matthew Hansford (2&3 South, 1978-1983)