It’s a long way from wintry south-east London to tropical Sri Lanka. Yet for the caring pupils and teachers from Harris Academy, Bermondsey, it seemed like no distance at all.

Twelve girls, aged 14, and five staff, flew to Sri Lanka in November to work with impoverished schools in one of the teardrop island’s poorest districts.

The trip was sponsored by the Worshipful Company of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales at the instigation of Peter Wyman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, past chairman of the Harris governors.

The Londoners spent a week in the district near Yala National Park, eight hours from Colombo, working with Yala Fund, a UK charity.

They repainted a jungle school and delighted locals with an accomplished song-and-dance routine. A repeat visit is planned for 2008.

More than 5,000 people died along this stretch of coast when the tsunami struck on Boxing Day 2004.

The livery company runs a charitable trust through which it works on the relief of poverty and improving education. The Yala Fund focuses much of its work on communities near Tissamahara and Hambontata in south east Sri Lanka.