What happened to the Boxing Day tsunami babies 20 years on

In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that devastated Sri Lanka and many other countries on Boxing Day 2004, I was the least likely candidate to volunteer my help. Footage of the waves wiping out beachside hotels where I’d once sat sipping cocktails round the pool left me terrified. I’ve always had a huge fear of the water since nearly drowning in the sea when I was nine, and the fact that we’d have been wiped out too if we hadn’t cancelled our planned family trip to Sri Lanka that Christmas haunted me.

My eldest son, Ryan, had other ideas. He had stepped in to help out in the office of the travel company in Sunbury that I had run for years with my husband. A few days after the tsunami had hit, a call came in from one of our agents in Sri Lanka.

They described how in some places, the water had come in more than 2km inland and how over 30,000 had been killed in Sri Lanka alone. The devastation was of a scale nobody could comprehend, they desperately needed help. Ryan booked a flight to leave the next day, and I knew I had to go with him.

It was to be a decision that would radically change our lives. We arrived to find rubble where familiar houses and fishing shacks had been and found people were living in tents, distraught and exhausted.

We were taken to an orphanage in Galle – one of the main cities – and it shocked us to our core. In the crumbling old building, there was a strong stench of urine and no running water or electricity. There were babies and small children everywhere; four or five to a cot, lying in filth and screaming to be fed. Terrified toddlers cried with arms up high, but there was nobody there to comfort them.

We were told that some of the children had been on the Colombo to Galle train which had been carrying 1,500 passengers when the wave hit. More than 1,000 people lost their lives and many children were separated from their families and older siblings. Most of them didn’t have names or any records of their dates of birth when they were taken to random orphanages.

Instinctively I picked up a tiny baby who was screaming incessantly in her soiled cot. Instantly she stopped crying and just looked at me. At that moment, I knew I couldn’t walk away. Her name was Piyumi, and I made a silent promise to help her.

Five weeks later, all the big charities were starting to leave Sri Lanka; they’d sanitised the water, got people safely living in tents and there was no infection. I too had returned to England but was desperate to go back. What about all the orphans and displaced children? I knew nothing had changed for the children I’d seen that day.

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Getting nowhere with the big charities, I decided to raise some money myself. At first, I started small, raising £4,000 by organising coffee mornings and finally was able to return to Sri Lanka a few months later. With the help of the national childcare commissioner, I made sure the money was used to install water and stable electricity supplies and buy washing machines, cots, toys, nappies and baby milk for the orphanage.

It was clear to me that Piyumi was not thriving; unlike all the other little ones who would climb all over me when I brought them sweets, she’d hide herself away. When I was told Piyumi’s brother, Isuru, then 11, had been located in another orphanage, and that their mother, Badrani, was also alive I was filled with hope. But with a missing husband, Badrani was homeless, and with no means of supporting her family, she wasn’t able to take Piyumi and her brother Isuru out of the orphanage.

More funds were needed, so in 2005 we founded Their Future Today and I organised a medieval banquet fundraiser at Hampton Court House. The £26,000 we raised was spent on completely renovating the entire orphanage.

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More funds bought some land and built a little family house for Piyumi and Isuru to live in with their mum. But first, we had to go through the courts to prove Badrani was a fit mother. Finally, in 2010, when Piyumi was six, they became the first family that the charity reunited permanently.

One of my trustees said: “Well you’ve done what you promised to do, got her back with her family, so you can draw a line under it now.” Part of me felt relieved because it had been so stressful dealing with bureaucracy in a foreign country with hardly any resources. But after two days, all I could think about was all the other children – so reuniting children with their lost families became a life-long mission.

It turns out that globally at least 80 per cent of more than 5 million children in orphanages have at least one living parent and extended family. Most are abandoned through poverty. We’ve rallied friends, family, clients, and colleagues to support our fundraising efforts, to ensure that we make a direct impact on improving the lives of these vulnerable children and others like them.

Over the years I’d visit Sri Lanka three times a year for meetings about the charity’s many projects and would always make time to visit Piyumi and her family, where I was welcomed with open arms. Of course, Piyumi has seen me many times over the years without knowing the full story of how she changed my life and the lives of hundreds more.

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When I finally told this shy young woman, then aged 15, the whole story she said she had no memory of being in the orphanage – moving into their home as that little six-year-old was her first memory. Her wish, like mine, was that every child in the orphanage could feel loved and have the chance to go home. And that is what we are now trying to do today; to give every child a home and advocate and provide alternative family and foster care training nationwide in Sri Lanka, which was an unknown concept there.

While it’s never been easy to fit in alongside family, my job and caring for elderly relatives, I’ve always felt like I have to keep returning to Sri Lanka. Slowly it has rebuilt, those babies are now in their twenties, but the scars on the country and its people remain.

It has been a family effort to help them – Richard holding the fort when I have to be there and our three sons Ryan, Adam and Joel involved in many different ways. Even my elderly dad was a big supporter – our first regular donor, he helped us to give out school book packs to rural children to give them an education and a future.

When we became a registered charity in 2010, I gave up the travel agency work, realising I couldn’t do both jobs well. Through Their Future Today, we’ve now reunited 17 children with a parent or family member, assisting with readoption through the courts, and establishing the children in local schools, as well as providing housing and support.

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We’re now focussing our efforts on preventing child abandonment through education projects launching a preschool in the local community, helping youngsters access education and malnourished children get daily school meals. We’ve also given hundreds of institutionalised young people vocational training and provide a sanctuary to help care leavers overcome their trauma.

Tragically, Piyumi’s brother Isuru passed away in a motorbike accident a few years ago, when he was 16, leaving her and their mother heartbroken. But now, aged 20, Piyumi is working as a classroom assistant and her confidence is steadily growing. She is part of a loving and supportive community and recently enrolled in art classes at a technical college – and it’s wonderful to witness her progress.

In 2017 I was awarded an MBE for community services in Sri Lanka. I look back on how much has come from that day so many years ago when I just wanted to protect that lonely, vulnerable child and give her a future. Because of her, many more children now have one.

Find out more about Their Future Today here