On Wednesday, June 29 2016 a team from IVolunteer International departed Colombo to Bibile, Monaragala in search for the “Thiththawalkiula Primary School.” The school is located in a suburb in Bibile, Sri Lanka and it is reachable through the Kotabowa-Dewalaya Road, which is far away from providing a facility of comfortable transportation. The road is broken beyond repair and can only be transported by Three-Wheelers or Motor Bicycles, to avoid the deep edges and cuts. There is about 4-5 kilometers from the Bibile main road when you turn into the Kotabowa-Dewalaya road to reach the primary school.
The journey on the broken road was totally worth it, when we experienced the living conditions of the lovely people in this small village. The villagers didn’t have basic facilities such as electricity, access to clean water, comfortable clothing and toilet facilities. The primary school is the only place with uninterrupted and facilitated electricity. The area is full of natural resources consisting of lakes, rivers and herbal trees. Most of the families generate their income from farming and harvesting. There has been multiple records of elephant-human conflict in the area and therefore, the officials of the government has provided them with elephant crackers, to scare away the elephants.
Then principal Mr. Yasarathne established the “Thiththawalkiula Primary School” in the year 1975. Since then, the school has been going on with the support of the parents and the government officials. The school was about to be closed down quite a couple of times due to the very low facilities available and the depletion of the interest of the villagers, to send their children to school and making a commitment for it. However, amidst all these difficulties the school has seen the light of day and is improving today, under the leadership of the present principal Mr. Siriwardena. Some of the facts about the school is as follows;
- Families in the village – 44
- Number of Students in School – 50
- Number of Teachers (Female) – 7
- Number of Teachers (Male) – 2
- Age range of students – 5 Years to 10 Years
- Grades Available – Grade 1 to Grade 5
- Classrooms available (partition) – 4
The IVolunteer International team did a visit to the school to talk with the principal, staff and parents to see how best we could help them and to analyze and see if their needs can meet with our capacity of donation. Following are basic needs that we can help them with –
- Lanterns (50 in Quantity)
- School Bags (50 in Quantity)
- School Uniforms
- White 56M
- Blue 13M
We are working on providing them other logistical facilities while donating essential equipment for the school. However, if you’re interested in donating any amount of the above mentioned categories, please fill this form and get in touch with us.
For further clarifications and quick correspondence regarding this project, please email us at [email protected]. If your organization would like to partner with us to launch this project and help us collect donations, send us an email to [email protected].