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Last Thursday Kumar and I were visiting a local camp to find some information on one of our clean up projects. This is a camp we know well and we get on well with the staff there. They brought to our attention the fact that the school was now ready to re-open since all the resdients had been moved. However it was not going to re open on Monday because the site was extremely dirty and it was un-safe now for the children to return. Among many other problems was the fact that the toilets were full to overflowing. There were no immediate plans for anyone to clean.

We immediately spoke to Tracey at Save the Children about the situation because the problem was too big for us to take on ourselves. The kind of money we would need to spend and the government authority needed, would be difficult for us to procure. Save the Children agreed to back this project for us and a new partnership was born. After spending all day friday getting government authority - an incredibly convoluted beaurocratic process - we started work on Saturday. We used our team from Thalarumba - they now need no supervision at all and a great amount of mutual trust has been established. We also hired the specialist toilet cleaners needed for the project. The tools they needed for the job came as a slight surprise to me - they included two packets of cigarettes and a bottle of the local firewater - but who am I to argue with local methods?

Anyway, the job is now completed and the school can now be re-open tommorrow. We have permission to clean all the refugee camp schools in the area now as soon as the last residents have left.

I believe that we as an organization have tried, over the course of the last month, to plug a few of the gaps left by the major governmental and non-governmental agencies. The fact that we have been able to do anything is thanks to all of you – and the fact that we now have the logistics, contacts and local know-how to identify and begin a project of this size in cooperation with a major NGO like Save the Children is also thanks to you and the support you have given us.

We hope to clean all the schools in the Matara district that need it (potentially about 28) and get the children back into school and some semblance of a normal life much quicker than would have been the case had it been left to the grossly overstretched local authorities.

A special mention goes to Kumar for this project - as he found out about the problem; sized up the scale of it and "sold" it to Save the Children; tirelessly shuttled between about 7 government agencies and then arranged the clean-up of the first school; all in the space of 48 hours.

Many thanks to Save the Children for providing support and support for this project.

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