And so the focal point of our journey has arrived. It has been great to see large swathes of this brilliant country, Myanmar in it’s infancy and Ho Chi Minh’s vibrancy but this is the real reason we hit the road in the first place.
We have to start with a list of thank yous because so many people have made our time and commitment to Batticaloa a success. Firstly to those of you who have contributed to the fundraising for the technology centre project, we and the community of Manmunai West are extremely grateful for your contribution. We received a number of anonymous contributions and for those we cannot thank you personally so hopefully you picked up the link to this blog and are following us, thank you. A huge thank you also goes out to the friends and families of Holy Family School in Wanaka for their generous donations of balls, books, stationary, clothes and much more. This all now holds pride of place for many children in Manmunai West.
To the Childfund National Office’s in New Zealand and Sri Lanka thank you for your time and patience. We know we have challenged you a little on what is possible but it was worth it.
Finally we owe a huge debt of thanks to everyone on the ground in Batticaloa that made our time here so memorable, we cannot possibly mention you all by name and of course there are so many wonderful people and leaders in the community who probably do not have access to this blog (although some of their children soon might through the technology centre development). To everyone at Childfund and their local partner, Vavunathivu Development Organization (VDO), Bernard, Delima, Kajan (chief photographer) and your amazing team in the field, Nayeem, Alex, Kuhendran and the whole Kiwifund organisation and last but not least the hundreds of community children and parents that took time out of their days to meet us and welcome us with open arms into their early childhood centres, schools, learning centres, children’s clubs and work places, thank you for everything you did for us while we were in Batticaloa, we were truly humbled by the experience and are so proud to partner with you on your journey.
It is almost impossible for words and photos to do justice to the time we spent in Batticaloa. Those of you who have been following our efforts for a while now will know that this is a community recovering from the ravages of war and natural disaster, many without the bare necessities of life, but at every turn we were greeted by people with huge smiles, energy and willing to give everything they could to spend time with us.
Chronicling our time in Batticaloa in detail would require readers of this blog to take a days leave to read it so a summary is in order but we are itching to share our experiences so please do not hesitate to get in touch if you want to learn more.
Every experience was extremely overwhelming and always left us with huge smiles from ear to ear and more often than not at least one us fighting a little tear in the eye. Not least of which was meeting our sponsored child and his family. This meeting lasts for hours and you never want it to end, we were welcomed into their environment with a traditional welcome, taking time (through translation) to share our respective history and aspirations, learn about each others families and interests over shared lunch, exchange of gifts and customs, games and more. As a mother Anna felt an incredible sense of gratitude from our sponsored child’s mother, although there were language barriers, the emotions were high as both mothers embraced while watching their boys instantly connect sharing laughter and joy while kicking a ball between them and flipping part filled drink bottles! To know that our sponsorship will help him with an education and a promising future feels really really good!
During our time here we experienced almost every aspect of Childfund, VDO and Kiwifunds community activity. A visit to an Early Childhood centre saw us greeted by children aged 2 – 4 resplendent in beautiful uniforms with equally well presented teachers. A huge swathe of these children volunteered short performances for us which were a real treat. It was amazing to see the lack of inhibition in these children to perform, something very different to what we are used to.
Time at the Irudducholaimau Vishnu School where the technology centre project is being completed really opened our eyes to the impact this project will have. To realise that this project with bring a secure class room with a handful of desktop computers, power and internet to a school where classes are currently being taught on the verandas of old buildings and senior students were sitting exams under a lean to designed as a bike shelter helped us understand the magnitude of what is being undertaken. One of the things that really sits with you as you travel Sri Lanka is the importance placed on schooling, Sri Lanka actually has an abundance of schools and while the infrastructure often isn’t more than a concrete shell without doors or windows all of these schools are full of qualified, energetic and invested teachers, hundreds of children well presented in uniform, supportive parents and community groups all culminating in a lively and energetic buzz.
Through the efforts of organisations like Childfund and VDO these children, most of whom are enduring a walk or ride well over 30 minutes each way, also get access to facilities for after school opportunities and we got to visit these also. Learning centres are facilities where children voluntarily drop to do additional study and childrens clubs provide extramural activities, generally sporting or art related. At first these seemed like free baby sitting but it was quite the opposite, they are run by volunteers with strict rules of behaviour and performance, children’s clubs also have a community elected child leader responsible for upholding these criteria, there is no free ride.
It was on a visit to a children’s club that the goods donated through Holy Family School in Wanaka were gifted. This was just an amazing experience. At every destination we arrived at our hosts adorned us with the most spectacular and freshly prepared flower lei garlands, we were always presented with these one by one as we arrived. At this particular children’s club Matt was presented with so many we could barely see him once finished and he was struggling to carry the weight. The gifting of goods donated from Wanaka was not just a privilege to be able to do but a chance to have some fun also. With over 100 children and parents crowded around the donated goods were presented semi formally to the guardians of the children’s club with the responsibility of pumping up the balls which were deflated for travel passed to the child leader. Everyone watched on patiently as he pumped away to inflate everything, upon completion a frenzy broke out as 80+ children dove for every new toy they could get their hands on, how no one was injured in the aftermath of cricket, rugby, frisbee, badminton, football, catch etc that ensued in the modest sized field is a mystery. For the less sport inclined, our girls were eager to take a group inside. Armed with pens, pencils and paper, it was such a treat to colour & draw spectacular creations, Charlotte & Ruby were thrilled to come away with a handful of drawings and handwritten notes many of which said “Thank you” and “I Love you” – very touching! For all of us but in particular Charlotte, Ruby and Bede this was a brilliant experience, children formed relationships immediately and it was almost impossible to leave, in fact the departure process probably took almost an hour, it seemed like the children of Manmanui West didn’t want us to leave and new games, including a dance off kept breaking out.
We also had the opportunity to spend some time with the Kiwifund team, this is a brilliant story that really energised Matt. Kiwifund is a micro finance team in Batticaloa that received it’s seed capital from Childfund. It is a community group based funding organisation that supports local’s to grow their income. From initial seed capital of $40k they have written loans totalling over $160k with a 99.67% repayment rate and now have capital of over $60k with over 3000 people having benefited from loans. All loans are administered through local community boards from application through assessment criteria and repayment. Applicants access loans of between $150 and $600 with interest at 1% per month (much less than they would get through traditional channels) and use this capital to grow their income. We spent time with two recipients, one a carpenter who used his first loan to procure timber so he could turn his orders around quicker, now highly regarded and employing two people and another a sewer who used her loan to procure a machine rather than sowing by hand, she has now expanded her portfolio from garments to include bags (one generously gifted to us) and on top of loan repayments puts $10 a week into bank savings, this from people who previously earned less than $20 per month. There is still a lot for the Kiwifund team to achieve and a journey we will follow closely with interest.
And so it is that we have left Batticaloa armed with memories that will last a life time and a connection that will see us return often. This is just the start of our journey with this community, despite having so little it is populated with smiles, energy and determination. Thank you once again to everyone who has made this such a humbling and rewarding experience.
Noodles and Notepads 