In mid-July, A-PAD staff visited Sabaragamuwa Province in the central region of Sri Lanka for a monitoring trip. In addition to local governments, businesses, hospitals, and tea plantations the team visited areas that suffered from landslides from heavy rains in June and spoke to the affected residents.

In 2022, Sri Lanka was hit by an economic crisis, riots broke out, the president fled the country, and the prime minister declared a national bankruptcy. Two years have passed since then and with support from Japan, the World Bank, and others, the country is on the road to recovery. From inside of a hotel in Colombo, there was no sign of chaos in the city and it was hard to believe that the country was in a state of economic collapse. However, once you step out of Colombo, you can see a clear difference in the standard of living of the people.

Sabaragamuwa Province was particularly memorable. Approximately 100 kilometers northeast of Colombo, it is a hilly area with a small mountain and the temperature is low and comfortable. It is said that the town was founded by the British in the 19th century and tea plantations are spread throughout. Ownership of many tea farms have changed from British to Sri Lankan, but the lives of children and adults working on tea farms are difficult. There is no set plan for planting crops and farmers grow fruits and vegetables by cutting down the trees they have planted at random. One resident said, “This kind of overdevelopment is causing landslides.” 

From the conversations with community members, it became clear that there are not many disaster preparedness awareness activities implemented for local residents and that the first challenge is to educate the people who will be the leaders of the local community. A-PAD is planning on developing projects to enhance disaster preparedness awareness activities.