Summer 2011 - Day three

Today started early as we intended to see the morning exercise routine taking place. We were accompanied by six teachers we had met the night before. This group was headed by a Sri Lankan teacher who runs a charity called 'Handsaid' and works at the international school in Basel,Switzerland and who came to Sri Lanka after the tsunami to build low cost housing in the north east. She has since continued with her work here building preschools. She was interested to see Al Ishraq as a potential site for a pre school - something that would please Mr Principal greatly! 'Handsaid' would be interested to build pre school as long as the preschool would employ a qualified preschool teacher. This generated much discussion between Mr Principal and the teachers as to whether this would be possible as currently their 'pre-school' is run on a volunteer basis by a lovely mom who is not a qualified teacher and is not receiving a salary. Al Ishraq has limited time to make a decision though as 'Handsaid' will only pursue this project if they are entirely sure it is sustainable and properly funded.

After the exercise routine we met with Mr Principal who had an immediate request for us - to repair the roof of the temporary classroom which is leaking badly. This of course means that those classrooms are difficult to use during the 4 month long monsoon season. We immediately asked him to get a quote to see if this would be feasible. Very promptly we had one and as this fell within our 70,000 rupee budget we decided to pursue it as it did meet 1, 2 and 3 of our criteria.

We then observed another sports event. Grade 1,2 and 3 did some races in the Assembly Hall - which is now a very dangerous place to be with tiles literally falling off the roof. Luckily none fell during the event and the children enjoyed several races while being watched by their contemporaries.

After lunch we had a meeting with Mr Principal to finalise how to spend the rest of the budget and to identify the two students who would be the recipients of our scholarships. Mr Principal and his teachers chose a girl for the academic scholarship as she is an outstanding student. They expect she might have the highest marks in her GCE 'O" levels next year and qualify to go on to study for her 'A' levels. She is currently in Grade 10. They suggested that we offer a year's after-school tuition to meet her potential. We were thrilled that they selected a girl for academic achievement in this highly male-dominated culture. They nominated a boy for the sports scholarship, a young man they had previously mentioned to us. He is a talented athlete competing in the 100M, 200M and long jump events. He competed at the divisional level but failed to make the provincial races due to lack of coaching and equipment, such as spikes to run in (he currently runs bare foot). He will receive a pair of spike athletic shoes and a set of running clothes as his scholarship.

Alex and Aerian then went to Pottuvil to price building supplies for a new roof with Ameer Master's assistance. In short order we had acquired the supplies and only needed a carpenter to agree to do the work the following day. Tomorrow is Poya Day (Full Moon) and a school holiday, so an excellent opportunity to get the work done whilst we are still here and while the children are not at school. The carpenter was engaged during the afternoon and work will begin tomorrow morning at 8am.

Finally, we concluded our busy day with Thasleem to finalise the design of our business cards and the making of our scholarship certificates.

We look forward to another busy day tomorrow 'supervising' the demolition and reconstruction of a new roof for the middle school classrooms.