| Trauma Relief |
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Update 09th October 2009 |
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Mission Statement
The Rainbow Centre works to help children break free from a cycle of poverty that would otherwise trap them in a world of crime, begging, addiction and abuse.
Purpose
The Rainbow Centre provides daily education, welfare, medicine and loving support to more than 100 children in South Western Sri Lanka suffering the effects of extreme poverty.
Rainbow Centre Overview
The Rainbow Centre gives daily support to children in south western Sri Lanka suffering the effects of extreme poverty. These children live in slum housing or on the street and in conditions that threaten their survival. The need to work or beg to support their families has kept these children out of school. Officially, many of these children do not exist. Many do not have identity documents and have no idea of their real age or name.
There is no safety net for such children. Prejudice, ignorance and their lack of identity bars them from government medical welfare. Their health problems are extensive. They include malnutrition, physical and psychological abuse, untreated congenital illnesses, as well as extreme vulnerability to viruses and serious water- and insect-borne diseases. As they are living in a tourist area well known for its problems with paedophiles, they are also at high risk of sexual abuse.
The Rainbow Centre Story
The Rainbow Centre opened in Bentota in February 2006 after six months of research into the hidden problems of street and working children in the Aluthgama area. It was praised highly by the National Child Protection Authority for its standards of care a month after its opening. The Rainbow Centre is now registered with the provincial government authorities and is also now registered as a non-governmental organisation with the national government in Colombo. The Rainbow Centre is not affiliated to any religious group.
The Rainbow Centre operates out of three large adjacent rented houses with a large secure garden in Bentota. It is run by a team of local highly skilled and qualified staff with backgrounds in social work and child welfare.
The Rainbow Centre also employs teachers, day-care assistants, a nurse, a matron, an accountant, a cook, a cleaner, a gardener, a driver and security guards. Specialist teachers are brought in as needed for vocational training and sport. The children are transported to and their homes by the Centre's bus as their parents cannot be relied upon to bring them to school and are often reluctant to let them off work.
Having begun with 11 children, the Rainbow Centre currently provides daily care and education to more than 110 children coming from an area stretching 40km from Deddoowa to Beruwala. The children are given nutritious meals, free healthcare under the supervision of the Rainbow Centre's nurse and access to a loving and supportive environment in which their rights as children are respected highly.
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ASL's Past Programs for Children
Weligama Orphan Sponsorship Program for 40 Children
ASL's Trauma Relief team implemented an Orphan Sponsorship Programme in April 2006 for 40 children in Weligama. This sponsorship program ran for 2 years and was closely monitored by the ASL team. ASL ensured that the children were the beneficiaries, not their guardians. We liaised with the schools, the bank, the Government Social workers the Monks and we visited the homes monthly to check on how things were going.
As part of the program ASL ran regular events for the children including creative writing competitions, drama productions, puppet shows and art exhibitions.
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Hambantota Sponsorship Program for 100 Children
AdoptSriLanka also funded a sponsorship program for 100 orphaned children in the Hambantota district. The program was run along the same lines of the Weligama Orphans Sponsorship but in this program, the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorder under the stewardship of Chairman Mahinda Gunawardena ran all of the administration. The AdoptSriLanka team monitored the outcomes of this project.
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