Fundraising and trek update

The best news today is that I’ve now completed my planned trek across Sri Lanka, achieved over three trips since Easter 2022. I’ve raised over £27,000 so far, with the support of many people, and every penny of that has gone to the various projects I’m committed to supporting. These have included funding the running costs of the girls’ refuge in Kandy as well as various forms of skills training, especially targeted at disadvantaged women and girls living in remote areas. 

As we’re continuing to travel south, everything we raise from Justgiving will go towards helping me reach my £30,000 target.  Again every penny will go to help fund the projects supported by Their Future Today and Women’s Development Centre, Kandy. As those of you who’ve been to Sri Lanka will know,  just a little goes a very long way here. 

Whilst my main fundraising trek is complete, we’ll still be walking wherever we can, but the sights we see and the blog content will be different in nature and I’ll be highlighting the purpose of it all, some of the outputs of the fundraising and my future plans in Sri Lanka. 

Kokkalai lagoon sanctuary 

Kokkalai is situated about half way between Mullaitivu and Nilaveli on the north east coast of Sri Lanka. We travelled quite a distance today although only managed just under 10km of walking – too hot, even though we set off very early. In my planning blogs over 3 years ago I briefly mentioned Kokkalai as the Victorian explorer and writer, Sir James Emerson Tennant, had written about it in his book, Ceylon. He recalled Kokkalai lagoon as being ‘infested with malaria as to render it too dangerous to pass the night there’. Whilst only stopping here for a few hours, we were warmly welcomed by a Tamil family and taken on a boat tour of the extensive lagoon to see what wildlife we could spot. Soon after boarding our boat with no seats, our boatman punted us out across the marshes, then motored across the lagoon and then drove us deep into the mangroves.  We saw electric blue kingfishers darting about, eagles completing an eloquent sequence in the sky (watch video below), monkeys tree-hopping, peacocks squawking and mongooses scuttling across the shrub land. 

As we headed down to our destination Nilaveli we stopped off at a roadside hut for a much needed coconut drink. 

Further sponsorship – if you’d like to help me to help those who have various forms of need in Sri Lanka, whilst being assured every penny will get to those who need it, then please donate by clicking on this link. Don’t forget if you’re a tax payer to declare gift aid when doing so which will increase your donation by 25% at no cost to you. Alternatively, if you know of anyone or any organisation who may have an interest in this cause please share this blog link with them. And, if you’d like to get involved in anyway please get in touch with me at marciasummers@hotmail.com

Next up: To Habarana for an elephant safari and Suzana’s volunteering in Kandy.

If you missed yesterday’s Blog 6 here it is.