The estates are where this Diocese has the longest continuous presence and the least public profile. Bishop Chapman founded chaplaincies for the plantation workers in the 1850s. The work has never stopped.
The Plantation Community Development Programme
Supported by USPG. In the last year the programme saw sixty four pre-school children graduate and move up to Grade 1, and paid monthly allowances to twelve pre-school teachers across six centres. Four A-level students and nine university students received scholarships, and one of the university scholars graduated in 2025.
Alongside that: child protection awareness reaching over a hundred students, hygiene awareness sessions with hygiene packs distributed to adolescents, seminars for Ordinary Level and Grade 5 Scholarship candidates who cannot afford the private tuition their classmates take for granted, regular sports with equipment provided, and music classes begun with the gift of an organ. An indoor badminton court has been built at Christ Church, Dickoya.
The Compassion projects
Eight church based child development projects reaching around 1,800 beneficiaries, each run by a local team with a parish priest as project director. They work in three stages: a survival programme for expectant mothers and infants to nine months, a home based programme for children aged one to three and their parents, and a centre based programme for children and young people from three to twenty two.
| Cluster | Project and church | Project Director | Beneficiaries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hatton | Sheen, St Paul's Church, Pundaluoya | Revd T. Edwin Raj | 189 |
| Hatton | Dunkeld, Christ Church, Dickoya | Revd S. K. Daniel | 154 |
| Hatton | Templestowe, St Andrew's Chapel, Rozella | Revd S. Suresh Kumar | 152 |
| Badulla | Passara, St Barnabas' Church, Passara | Revd N. Shabilash | 176 |
| Badulla | Mahadhowa, Christ Church, Mahadhowa | Revd N. Shabilash | 190 |
| Badulla | Kanavarella, Good Shepherd Chapel, Kanavarella | Revd N. Shabilash | 194 |
| Batticaloa | Mylampavely, St Paul's Church, Mylampavely | Revd Thiviyapalan | 342 |
| Batticaloa | Morokotanchennai, St Paul's Church, Morokotanchennai | Revd P. Thayalan | 339 |
| Total | 1,736 | ||
Every child receives a nutritional meal each day. Families receive medical support, help with income, and assistance in urgent need. Children take part in educational, recreational and leadership activities and in exposure programmes outside their own communities.
What gets in the way
Children are lost when families relocate to areas where there is no project. Some drop out of school for economic reasons and are offered vocational and self employment training instead. Some projects are short of space and proper facilities; at Mahadhowa the project runs entirely on church premises with no proper washrooms. Scholarship numbers are limited by funding rather than by need, and transport remains a real obstacle for children in the remoter estates.
Manager: Mr W. Robinson.