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| Sunday, 10 July 2005 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Restore Medhankara to accommodate tsunami-affected children Medhankara college is situated in the Southern coastal belt of Galle District in Sri Lanka just half a kilometre away from the sea. The school buildings were not affected by tsunami, but it lost one student and another 191 students out of 380 lost their houses and all their belongings. Now they live in tents. All the students attending this school are extremely poor. The parents have no regular income and are the poorest of the poor in the area. This college was a reputed English medium school established in 1934 and has a proud history. It catered to the semi-urban and rural children of the Sinhala and Muslim communities in the area and has produced a large number of distinguish citizens. But with the development of another school with better facilities just two kilometres away Sri Medhankara College lost its position and children of affluent families left the school. This newly developed school was very badly affected by tsunami as it is very close to the sea and the estuary. The students of this school are now keen to enter Sri Medhankara College specially due to many tsunami warnings after 26th December 2004. But, it has no facilities. Two buildings are already declared unsafe. It has classes up to University entrance level. This appeal is for the restoration of the school to accommodate about 2000 students as in the past and to provide an environment for all the students in the area to study free of any fear from a future tsunami. A twinning arrangement with a foreign or local school would be most welcome for a sustainable development. The school can be developed in two stages. The first stage would be to repair the existing buildings and provide furniture and equipment. The cost has been estimated at Rs. 12,500,000 (US$25,000) for the first stage. This too, can be subdivided on class room basis for any person to undertake development. The second stage would be the provision of new buildings. An eight roomed up-stair building is proposed in the first instance. It will need five buildings each. All development work will be handled by the school development society. Dr. G.B. Gunawardena on e-mail [email protected] or Dr. T. Jayasinghe (past student) on e-mail [email protected] |
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