The community health education programme started in March 2011 for children in Mahiloormunai in the Batticoloa District and Kudiyiruppumunai in the Ampara District continues to serve the communities. These are two villages where we have been running a Community Health Education programme since 2009. Two sports clubs have been formed in each village to engage the children.
Activities include:

• Evening classes conducted with the assistance of community health educators
• Inter club games (cricket, badminton and volley ball)
• Development lessons (for community activities) being taught while conducting games and activities two days a week in July and three days a week during the August 2011 school holidays.

Following the Tsunami in December 2004, a programme was started in 4 villages in the East of Sri Lanka, partnering with Tearfund UK (Primary Healthcare provision lasted for just two years). Currently this comprises of Community Health Education (CHE) for rural facilitation of people with disabilities or other barriers to accessing health care. Under the Community Healthcare Education (CHE) programme our teams train people in rural villages giving them basic physical and spiritual health lessons and how to share them with their neighbours. This is an ongoing voluntary programme.

The beneficiaries of this healthcare preventative programme are the communities themselves. A total of 31 community health educators were trained in two villages in 2010. There has been an increased adoption of various hygiene/healthy practices in both villages. For example, 53% increase in families boiling water for drinking and 30% increase in families with hygienic latrines in Mahilooormunai (195 families, 884 persons); 71% increase in families boiling water for drinking; 82% increase in families with garbage disposal pits in Kudiyiruppumunai (90 families, 438 persons).