As you all know, the flood and landslides that struck Sri Lanka have taken away so many lives, belongings of the people.
Around 717,622 People belonging to 184,265 families were affected in 15 Districts due to the flood situation.212 Deaths and 79 missing reported as per the situation report issued by DMC on 04-06-2017 1800hrs. Further, over 2,313 houses fully destroyed and around 12,529 houses partially damage. Approximately 24,962 people belonging to 7046 families were located at 226 safe locations as per the reports released by Disaster Management Center of Sri Lanka. In responding to the above situation, many organizations, government agencies launched immediate relief work to support the people who were effected and to save lives. All most all the Sri lankans generously supported those efforts voluntarily showing a greater concern..
As the immediate relief work is over, Now, we have come to the second stage where people are trying to get back to normality. Students are back in schools. People who lost livelihood are trying to restart. Many people in most of the parts where water levels went above house levels have to start from the sketch as they have lost a lot of household items including furniture, kitchen utensils, cloths and almost everything. In responding to the above situation, Pamunugama YMCA launched a campaign to raise funds to assist the effected people.
We have received a positive response from some of our friends living abroad attached to the YMCA and few well-wishers in Sri Lanka. With their financial support we have launched the first stage of our support to the effected school students and their families.
With the coordination of Matara YMCA, we visited two schools in Matara District on 13 June, 2017. Shelton Peiris, Nuwan Sameera and Ridma Fonseka joined the visit and Lesli Sudirikku (General Secretary) and Nishantha Jayasekara (President) of Matara YMCA also joined. During the visit we visited two schools and a community in the estate sector.
Support to the Palatuwa School
As we entered Palatuwa Maha Vidyalaya, we started to here many sad stories of effected. First thing caught our eyes when entered the school was a banner of one student of the school who drown with his mother during flood.
There are around 2000 students in the school and 460 students badly affected with their families. Some houses are completely destroyed. Even the members of the teaching staff have faced a similar situation. 69 of them got caught in the rising waters and 19 of them are left with nothing after floods.
As we only had limited resources, we had to be selective in assisting the students. We provided support for 51 students to get school shoes with Rs 1,000/= each in the school. As a token of our support, we handed over 10 pairs of shoes while the others received vouchers. Following the distribution of support, we had a discussion with Ms Nadeepa the Vice Principal of school. During the discussion, we figured out that there are so many other needs including stationeries, cloths and household items for the families of effected students.
Support to the Hulandawa School and
Hulandawa Estate
This school is serving the children of the Tamil estate workers who live below the poverty line. 350 students are in the school. 81 of them affected badly. 35 students are living with their grandparents.
95% of the students of this schools are coming from economically marginalized estate workers community. We provided support for 49 students with school shoes with Rs 1,000/= each. We also handed over clothes with a validity of Rs 15,000 to the principal of the school to distribute among the most deserving students. We also gave away stationery items to students with a validity of Rs 13,500. Need was such that we had to left-our many effected as we had limited. Last stop for the day was Hulandawa estate. We met around 20 people in the estate with the support of principal of Hulandawa Vidyalaya who guided us to the estate. During the visit we were able to witness several houses which went totally under floods. We saw how big the damage was. We gave away usable used cloth for 11 families.
We would like to thank Mr. Pute and Rolf of Asker YMCA YWCA Scouts, Miss Vigdis Juliussen, Dr. Palika Siriwardana and Dr. Asoka Premarathne for their financial contributions to help the needy with above assistance Further we thank all the Board of Directors of Pamunugama YMCA and the youth members for their support,
"Ape Sindu Patiya" (Our singing Party) is the annual fundraising event of the YMCA of Pamunugama. This year the party was held at Bethani Function Home on 26th August 2017. As usual the event was full of singing, dancing and fun activities.
