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Shining Life
Shining Life Children's Trust works to improve the lives of disadvantaged children in Sri Lanka. Our focus is on the family. Through working with families and the communities in which they live we aim to build a sustainable and brighter future for the children. We believe that real and sustainable development is a process in which people change their own lives by their own efforts. To achieve this we work in partnership with local Sri Lankan organisations.
Objectives
- To work with local communities to help children disadvantaged by war and poverty
- To provide support to children in a family-centred environment
- To work constructively and collaboratively with persons of all cultures, ethnicities, races and religions
- To ensure work undertaken facilitates sustainable development
- To work in partnership with local organisations
- To support small, unique and new projects
- To support and develop projects that build upon the strengths of Shining Life Children's Trust
- To promote understanding and knowledge of Sri Lanka amongst supporters in the UK
Current Project
We are currently planning a project in conjunction with Hanguranketha Women’s Foundation, a small NGO based in Rikillagaskada, in Nuwara Eliya district. The project will be based on the nearby Rahatungoda tea estate, home to 280 families, with a total population of about 1,000 people, including 300 children. The large majority of families are Tamil, with smaller Singhalese and Muslim populations. Families live on the estate, in line rooms and most work as tea pickers and supplement their income by selling surplus vegetables grown to passing traders.As part of the planning process, community members have participated in activities and through these, informed project staff about the problems they face in their day to day lives and helped to devise solutions. Some of the problems identified by community members are:
- Children not attending school regularly
- Poor nutrition
- Lack of preschool facilities
- Lack of library facilities
- Insufficient income
- Lack of knowledge about general health
- Poor sanitation facilities
To combat these problems, we are working to develop a project which will provide the basis for the community to make positive sustainable changes to their lives. Project activities will include:
- Repairs to existing toilets and construction of new ones
- Establishment of Women's Societies and Children's Clubs
- Improvement to preschool buildings
- Training programmes for community members on health and nutrition
We anticipate working with the Rahatungoda community for two years, from September 2008. However, at all stages we will be working to ensure changes made in the community are sustainable and we will continue to support this project until we are confident that the community has the capacity to continue their development.
During the pre project stage, our partner organisation has been conducting research on Rahatungoda estate and networking with government officials, NGOs, and other organisations working in the region. Through this, it was recently discovered that an international NGO is also planning a programme on Rahatungoda, as well as several other estates.
We are now working closely with this NGO to ensure our programmes complement each other and ensure the best possible outcome for estate residents. At this stage it has been decided that the international NGO will deliver a savings and loan scheme on the estate as well as provide relevant vocational training to estate residents.
This releases some of our resources to utilise in other areas identified by the community. Additional activities now planned include an environmental awareness programme and a gardening development programme, with the aim of improving the environment for all estate residents, and developing the capacity of the community to grow vegetables, an important source of nutrition and income, efficiently.
For more information on Shining Life Children’s Trust, visit: www.shininglife.org.