Nuwara Eliya
In Nuwara Eliya - the hill capital of Sri Lanka, the bracing cold weather so pleasing to its visitors offers little comfort to its many low income families who have no electricity or running water. In these communities even basic facilities are scarce; life is full of hardships with alcohol abuse and domestic violence being rife. They earn a meager living working on the vegetable farms or tea estates – often taking their young children with them as there is no other alternative.
Offering a safe haven for these children, our centre in Nuwara Eliya provides them with meals, clothes and other necessities as well as a place to be while their parents are out in the fields all day. This also enables the older children to attend school as it is common in many such families for the elder siblings to stay back and take care of the youngsters.
In the morning the centre is run as a pre-school, turning into a kind of after-school club later in the day where older children can attend to learn English and computer skills and other subjects they require assistance with.
While we serve the communities within close proximity to our centre, there are many children who would benefit from what we offer, but cannot afford transport to the centre. It is our goal to find a solution to reach out to them as well in the near future.