Endowing children with a future

Nipuni WIMALAPALA

Educating a child means a lot to the society in which he or she lives. Education changes one’s life which effectively brings positive outcomes to the whole society. Still there are a lot of children who do not go to school though education is free in Sri Lanka. Helping these children to get educated is a huge service that will produce good citizens.

Beach children, a common scene in Kalutara coastal area, are living in very bad conditions and are not schooling because of their parents economic difficulties. There are clever students who have the ability to study well. Dr Pramilla Senanayake, currently the honorary president of the Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka, chairperson of the Concept foundation located in Geneva, Switzerland, Trustee of the AIDS Foundation of Sri Lanka and holding many other significant positions in many organizations is dedicated to helping these children through Educate a Child Trust.

Endowment Fund was opened by the EACT at Cinnamon Grand Hotel recently to increase the support they provide poor children in Kalutara area. Many participated at the event. Some of the children who are benefited from the project also participated. Dr Senanayake the pioneer of the project revealed the fact that they are providing all the necessary facilities including books, shoes, stationery, class fees and even meals to these poor children.

“We have built a community centre and children gather to it after they come back from school. We give them a very good meal and in the evening we hold classes, English and IT. We pay their tuition fee as well. There are some children who do their studies really well and there are some excellent students who have come to a very good position today.”

“We need a lot of money to handle these things and because of that I decided to launch the Endowment Fund which will be really helpful to find the expected money. There are three sponsorship categories called, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Each category has a certain value,” said Dr Senanayake.

Many people came up to the stage volunteering to take sponsorships. Some of them got silver sponsorships and others got gold or platinum. It is only a one time donation; they do not have to pay continuously. One of the donors who came from United Kingdom spoke at the event.

Some of the children also expressed their ideas about the fund. Ravin de Silva who has entered Colombo University this year and is doing Physical Science said that he is really grateful to EACT for making it possible him to come to this position. He is following CIMA, for which EACT provide course fees. Dinu Kanishka who is doing A-Ls at Royal College is also benefited from the fund.