Cyclone Ditwah broke 50 village tanks. Without them, farming families across Anuradhapura cannot grow food. Help us rebuild them.

Malkanthi’s Story

The night Cyclone Ditwah hit, Malkanthi didn’t think about the tank in her village. She thought about her roof, her children and getting through till morning. It was only after the wind died down that she walked out to the water and understood what the storm had actually taken.

The bund was cracked open. The tank her family has relied on for as long as she can remember was bleeding out slowly. She has gone back almost every day since. She watches the water line drop a little more each time. She knows that when the dry season comes, there will not be enough left to plant with.

Nobody from the government has come to look at it. It’s a small tank, in a small village, and small tanks don’t make it onto anyone’s list. So Malkanthi waits, watching the water disappear, worrying about a harvest that may not come and the family’s income that she will eventually lose.

This is the gap Palmera steps into. With the tank restored and her farmer society equipped to maintain it, Malkanthi will not have her livelihood taken away by the waters. She will be standing in a field that is actually growing something. Something that can feed her family and sustain them.

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The Wider Picture

Malkanthi is one of around 2,500 farming families across five divisions in Sri Lanka’s North Central Province living with the same slow emergency. Cyclone Ditwah structurally damaged 50 small village tanks in November 2025. These are not large reservoirs. They are modest, community managed systems that capture wet season rain and carry it through the dry months. For these families, a working tank is the difference between a harvest and nothing.

The damage is specific and fixable: bunds breached, sluice gates failed, irrigation channels silted. But these tanks are too small and too rural to attract government repair schemes, so the families who depend on them have no other route to get them fixed. Emergency relief reached these communities in the days after the cyclone. This slower crisis, water leaking away bund by bund, is still unfolding months later, and it will keep unfolding until someone steps in.

What Your Gift Does

• $2,000 restores one village tank. Covers the structural repairs, rebuilding the bund, repairing the sluice gate, clearing the silted channel, that bring one community’s water source back to life.
• $10,000 restores five village tanks. Brings water back to five communities at once, supporting hundreds of farming families through every cultivation season ahead.
• $20,000 restores ten village tanks and helps fund the systems that protect them. Goes beyond repair to help fund the farmer society strengthening and revolving maintenance funds that keep tanks working long after construction ends.

What We Are Going To Do

We are restoring all 50 cyclone damaged tanks across five divisions in Anuradhapura. Every tank on our list has been field assessed, verified, and approved by the relevant government departments, and every one serves farming families with no alternative route to water.

• Validate the damage, tank by tank.

  We confirm the scope of damage on every tank together with the farmer society and the relevant government technical teams, so repairs are based on a shared, verified picture rather than assumption.

• Carry out the physical repair.

  Engineers and farmers work side by side to rebuild breached bunds, repair failed sluice gates, and clear silted irrigation channels, restoring each tank’s capacity to hold water through the dry season.

• Hand over a tank that is ready to be maintained.

  Every restoration finishes with a tank in working order and a farmer society equipped with the systems to keep it that way.

How We Will Do It So It Lasts

A restored tank is not just a repair. It is the infrastructure a farming family’s entire livelihood depends on, season after season, and we build every restoration to last well beyond our own involvement.

• Working with government from the start.

  We formally engage the Department of Agrarian Development and divisional secretariats before any repair begins, so our work fills genuine gaps rather than duplicating existing plans. Government officials remain active partners throughout, lending technical input and institutional legitimacy that protects communities long after our teams leave.

• Working with farmer societies, not around them.

  We sit with the farmer society attached to each tank, map the damage together, and design the restoration collaboratively. Farmers contribute their own labour during construction, reducing costs and building a deep sense of ownership over what is rebuilt.

• Strengthening the farmer society for the long term.

  We help each farmer society put in place the governance, financial systems, and revolving maintenance funds, seeded from the tank’s own productive output, so minor repairs can be managed without waiting for outside help.

• Proven to deliver year round cultivation.

  Proven to deliver year round cultivation.
  In our previous tank restoration programme in the same region, farmers who had been limited to one cultivation season a year were cultivating three seasons within a year of completion.

When our involvement ends, farming families across Anuradhapura will have restored tanks, strengthened farmer societies, and the maintenance systems to keep them that way for generations to come.

The 50 Tanks, By Division

Division	Tanks	Farming Families	Acres Benefited
Rambe	14	939	1061
Tirappane	13	610	802
Kebitigollewa	11	466	756
Mihintale	9	453	550
Nachchaduwa	3	34	35
Total	50	2502	3204

 

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From Relief to Rebuilding

The emergency relief reached these communities in the days after the cyclone. The slower work, restoring the water their livelihoods depend on, is still unfinished.

Stand with 2,500 farming families and help relief turn into rebuilding.