Gammadda 'RESILIENCE ' Launches Ditwah Farmer Support, 40 projects, 4 Districts

COLOMBO (News 1st); On 25 July, on the fifth death anniversary of media stalwart and Gammadda founder Mr. R. Rajamahendran, the Gammadda Movement unveiled the next chapter of its long-running disaster response: the “Resilience” phase of the Gammadda Rebuild programme. The launch, held at the Matale District Secretariat in Sri Lanka’s Central Province, signals a shift from emergency recovery to strengthening farm livelihoods against future shocks after Cyclone Ditwah battered large parts of the country.

Chevaan Daniel, leader of Gammadda, joined senior officials, including the Commissioner of the Department of Agrarian Development and the Matale District Secretary, to announce a targeted effort that places small-scale irrigation and agricultural land rehabilitation at its centre. The initiative will operate in four hill-country and adjacent districts hardest hit by the cyclone: Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Badulla and Matale.

Gammadda’s Resilience phase will deliver 10 projects in each of the four districts, for a total of 40 projects. The programme is being implemented in collaboration with the Department of Agrarian Development to ensure technical input and alignment with government land and water management plans. Work will centre on minor irrigation development, repairing and upgrading tanks, canals and small irrigation schemes, and rehabilitating agricultural land that was silted, eroded or otherwise damaged during Ditwah’s floods and winds.

Beyond infrastructure, the programme will directly equip farming families. Three hundred selected agricultural households across the four districts will receive tools and equipment, enabling them to re-establish cropping, diversify production and raise productivity while reducing their vulnerability to future extreme weather.

The Resilience launch marks the fourth and final phase of Gammadda’s comprehensive disaster response for Ditwah-affected communities. The movement’s phased strategy reads as a coherent progression: Rescue & Relief to address immediate needs; Recover to stabilise households and basic services; Rebuild to restore infrastructure and livelihoods; and now Resilience, designed to make communities less fragile in the face of subsequent storms, floods and climatic variability.

Timing the launch to coincide with the anniversary of Mr. R. Rajamahendran’s passing gave the ceremony additional resonance. Late Mr. Rajamahendran, who founded the Gammadda Movement, is remembered for building a platform that mobilises volunteers, media and resources to respond to disasters and chronic rural needs. Gammadda framed the Resilience phase as a continuation of that legacy: pragmatic, community-centred, and focused on enabling people to shape their own recovery.

For many smallholders in the Central Province and neighbouring highland districts, minor irrigation systems, village tanks, feeder canals and small diversion weirs, are lifelines. Cyclone Ditwah’s heavy rains and floodwaters damaged these fragile systems, silted basins, and eroded topsoil, leaving fields unproductive and storage capacity diminished ahead of the next planting season. By restoring minor irrigation and rehabilitating degraded agricultural land, Gammadda’s programme aims to restore water availability for crops, reduce crop failure risk, and rebuild farmers’ capacity to earn incomes.

The Resilience initiative arrives amid renewed attention to climate-related risks in Sri Lanka’s central highlands, where steep terrain amplifies erosion risks and where livelihoods depend on a patchwork of small farms. If executed effectively, the mix of engineering work and direct support to 300 families could serve as a model for scaling resilience-focused interventions after future disasters.

Gammadda’s journey since Ditwah illustrates a larger lesson for disaster response: emergency action saves lives, rebuilding restores foundations, but resilience-building is what reduces the need for repeated rescue efforts.