Year 12 Lend a Helping Hand

Acknowledging the fact that it rarely occurs to us as international school students to realise we take the most basic items (such as stationery) for granted, we decided to start up a charity project aimed at donating stationery to underprivileged children in Sri Lanka. For convenience, we decided to refer to this project as a charity, though we are quite reluctant to treat it as one and acknowledge that the word itself may have a negative connotation to it. Never having experienced full responsibility over conducting community service or charity work we were unbeknownst to the ways of going about this. However, we managed to find a reliable contact up in the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka (Alampil) who helped us organise it.

Prior to our visit we purchased stationery (pencil cases, pencils, rulers, erasers, sharpeners as well as packs of colour pencils and pastels) and some sweets for the children. Then on the 24th of October 2018, we took a train from Colombo Fort up to the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka, Paranthan. Upon arrival we were picked up by the reverend we contacted up north, who took us into town where we purchased a total of 300 writing books and 20 water bottles for the children as well as 2 bicycles for a couple of teachers who, we were told, have to endure miles of long walks to and from school every day due to the inaccessibility of public transport in the area. We left at 6.30 am and arrived at 5.00 pm the same day at the reverend’s church where all the children from the village were gathered. Initially, we were informed there were only 100 children that we were to give the stationery to. However, when we arrived it took us by surprise when we saw there were actually 150 children. Hence we were unable to equally distribute the stationery we had bought and individually packed for each child and had to adapt accordingly to this setback. Luckily we were able to ensure the stationery was given fairly to each child, and we soon found that the setback we had initially been quite worried about was but a minor issue that we were all able to work together around and figure out. Afterwards, we chatted amongst the older students about their lives and the history of the north and were shocked yet enlightened to find out the extent of the atrocities they and their families had to endure during (not to mention after) the civil war.

That night we had dinner at the reverend’s house and were brought to an orphanage close by that generously offered to give us free accommodation for the night. The next morning before we left we noticed (displayed on a poster in the hostel) that it is run by donations. We thought it best to donate Rs 5,500 of the leftover money towards the orphanage to thank them for their hospitality towards us as well as to help out in any way we could. Finally, we took a bus to Paranthan and left the train station at 11.00 am, arriving in Colombo at 7.00 pm which concluded our trip. 

We would like to thank the school immensely for their support, including everyone within as well as outside the school community. We raised a total of Rs 111,640, of which Rs 68,050 was collected from students and staff in the school. We spent a total of Rs 96,640, leaving us Rs 15,000 to kickstart our next trip which will hopefully be organised in December this year. Our thanks extend to all those who donated, as well as Ms. Claire and Ms. Sylvana for their huge support in making this possible. We cannot even begin to express how surprised we were by how quickly everyone responded to donating. We definitely did not expect to get over Rs 100,000 yet it goes to show that with cooperation and kindness, so many unanticipated milestones and achievements can be reached.

Inuri Nanayakkara 

Kayla Collett,