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Large, well-constructed ‘agro-wells’ are making farming profitable for farmers living in dry areas of Sri Lanka. Farmers in the dry areas of the district of Matale benefited from the Regional Economic Advancement Project (REAP) from 1999 to 2007. REAP was mostly funded by a loan of US$11.7 million from IFAD to the Government of Sri Lanka. The project had a total budget of US$14.5 million, and benefited some 30,000 households. A major activity of REAP’s subcomponent on soil conservation and water management was assistance to the poorest farmers to enable them to construct agro-wells for irrigation purposes. This activity was started in 2001.

The fishing industry was hit hard by the tsunami that affected 70 percent of Sri Lanka’s coastline, including most harbours. More than 27,000 fishers and thousands of other people working in the industry were killed. About 24,000 boats, or 75 percent of the Sri Lankan fishing fleet, and one million nets were destroyed or damaged, leaving 130,000 fishers unemployed.

An unprecedented flash flood caused by torrential rains devastated southern Sri Lanka during May 2003, causing landslides, deaths and displacement across five southern districts. 40,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, and thousands of people were missing in the immediate aftermath. Severe damage was also done to infrastructures such as hydropower and irrigation systems.

Top priority on the cleanup agenda are schools, an important means of re-establishing stability in the lives of children traumatized by the tsunami. In Ampara, volunteers worked on the worst-hit schools, several of which were structurally sound but strewn with mud and heaped with overturned desks and ruined books. Other schools that had been used as temporary shelters also required a thorough cleaning.

It isn't only the communities with which ChildFund is working that are learning about the importance of washing hands correctly, a balanced diet and drinking uncontaminated water.

Every two weeks a lesson from ChildFund's health and hygiene specialist Dr Premadasa Ekanayake is broadcast on Sri Lanka's most popular radio station - Ruhunu FM.

In many ways it was children who had the most to lose when the waves came crashing through their homes and schools. Now, many months after the waves struck, they require further assistance to reduce the risk of problems associated with displacement - disease, hunger, malnutrition and exploitation.