Despite efforts to restore schooling, children at the Manik Farm and other newly resettled areas face many difficulties. Chandani Kirinde reports from Vavuniyaa. It's been a long time since eight-year-old Selvi slept on a bed. It's been an equally long time since she played in the garden of her house in tranquillity and peace like children her age love to do where-ever they may live. But she and many others like her wake up each morning in their makeshift homes and head to their makeshift schools set up in the welfare centres in Manik Farm in Vavuniya to attend classes trying to live as normal a life a possible in extremely trying conditions.

Y.K. Selvarajah is the Principal of one of the five schools

In this school there are at least 100 students who have a single parent, the other lost in the war while several others are have lost both parents and are living in the welfare centre with relatives.

The school has 27 teachers, 18 of whom are IDPs, who themselves have been deeply traumatised by their experiences. "Initially the teachers would lapse into long periods of silence, unable to cope with the trauma they have experienced prior to arriving at the camps.

"The children sit on the floor in the classrooms and so do the teachers, says L.Kanthan, a teacher in another school nearby. The majority of those living in the village reside in temporary homes that have been put up using the grants given by the Government as well as UN organisations and other NGOs.

They push each other to get a closer look at their own faces caught on camera. They haven't seen their own faces for a long time. There are no mirrors in their homes at Manik Farm.