How do we help

As a Foundation based in the Netherlands we have one important task

As a Foundation based in the Netherlands our most important task is to raise enough money each year to keep Somawathi Home running. What do we use the money for? What do we offer this wonderful children’s village? In the first place a safe home for our 104 orphaned and abandoned children with all the care that comes with it in order to help them stand on their own two feet and give them the perspective of a safe future. But we do a lot more, not exclusively for our own children. Children in the area are provided with medical and dental care. They can also come to our school. What by the end of 2004 started as bringing 24 boxes of medicine has become a durable aid project in Sri Lanka.

Living: a safe home

First of all Somawathi Home is the safe home for 104 orphaned and abandoned children. In small groups of 8 they live together with their care mother in a living pavilion. This pavilion is a completely furnished home. The care mother takes care of ‘her family’. She helps the children do their homework, teaches them to cook, clean the house, goes shopping with them and together they maintain their vegetable garden. Each of every 20 pavilions has its own private piece in their common vegetable garden where common vegetables and spices are grown.

Education

Education is of special concern in the Somawathi Home. This has two main reasons:

  1. – Over 80% of resident children suffer from backwardness at school of one or more years because of their background.
  2. – Only 40% of children in Sri Lanka in regular education (Government School) have sufficient marks for their O-level (the level for further learning after they reach the age of 16).