CROSS-Channel swimmer Roger Allsopp has pledged £1,750 to Bridge to Sri Lanka after a deeply emotional experience in the country. The 66-year-old retired surgeon, wife Kay and family have donated money to help buy land and build a house for two families who now live in temporary shacks.

The Hope for Guernsey chairman joined charity founder Sarah Griffith, her son Jack, 20, retired accident and emergency nurse Jean Rouget and Maire Tyrrell on a trip to the country last month.

‘It all started when I went to one of Sarah’s open days at Capelles Methodist Church.

‘I was impressed with what was going on, particularly when she spoke about a 14-year-old boy who had sustained severe burns just after the 2004 tsunami.

‘I thought I would go out and see what the situation now was with this boy.’

Island pharmacies donated hundreds of pounds-worth of drugs and medical supplies.

The group travelled to Hikkaduwa in the south-west, 94km from the capital Colombo. The team set up four clinics and saw more than 200 people in the refugee villages.

‘Over there, people go to the doctor but they cannot afford the drugs prescribed.’

He added: ‘The Mahathun family were living in a temporary house, which had been purchased together with the land by Dave Matheson from Laska. A storm had undermined the structure and they needed rehousing urgently.’

A separate family visited by the group, the Chandanas, had lost their kitchen in a bad storm a week before.

‘It is devastating that this family could not afford a second sheet of corrugated iron to make their shack waterproof so when a storm does come, the shack gets flooded.’

The donation will help to buy land and go towards building the family of seven a permanent house and supplies so they do not have to live in a one-room shack with no water or electricity.

‘There are quite a few people who would like to give money to charity when they know every penny goes to helping a family like this.’

He said that despite the work of non-governmental organisations in the wake of the tsunami, villages built for the large refugee population had been ill-planned.

‘There are entire estates without water and electricity.

‘We went to one village on the top of a hill, where the villagers had to walk miles for water, where there was no school or playground for the children and the families were totally isolated from everything that they had known before the tsunami struck – their jobs, homes and livelihoods.

‘All the major charities left after they had done their bit and refuse to go back and fix the problems they have left behind. Some charities have not spent money in the best way or indeed wisely, which is in total contrast to what Sarah is doing.’

* For more information, visit www.bridge2srilanka.com