Christmas saved the children at Arudpany orphanage.
Knorr-Bremse Global Care is supporting a range of different projects in Sri Lanka in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Children's Trust. Three examples:
Arudpany orphanage near Batticaloa
The 30 orphans aged between 4 and 20 living in Arudpany Orphanage all survived the tsunami because they were attending a Christmas service in the interior at the time. In addition to funding the acquisition of a three wheeled motor scooter, Knorr-Bremse Global Care has also helped equip the orphanage with modern communications (telephones and computers for keeping the accounts) and has enabled the orphans to attend English courses.
The youth center with its extension.
The Nava Shakti Youth Centre in Kalmunai
The youth center began as an initiative by young local women who started a self-help project soon after the tsunami, setting up an afternoon childcare center for school children in the ruins of a residential building. KB Global Care funded construction and extension of the youth center, which since December 2008 has offered more room for creativity and games, as well as a clinic where children and young people from the surrounding area can receive in-patient treatment. The youth center also offers free daily homework assistance and extra coaching, as well as fresh fruit, nuts, vegetables and milk as healthy diet supplements and also trauma therapy.
Young people from Kalmunai visit one of the IT training centers.
Tele-center project in rural Sri Lanka
In the remote region of Bedulla, more than 20 disabled children and young people are being prepared as IT trainers, with the aim of enabling them to manage tele-centers. In addition to the three existing tele-centers, a further three were rented and equipped with three or four PCs each, a telephone, printer and scanner by the end of 2009. This will give the rural community access to the World Wide Web and enable the young people to earn an independent living. The centers will also be used to offer sewing and dressmaking courses for girls, so that young women in the region have an alternative source of employment to tea-picking. Global Care is funding the technical equipment for the centers, including sewing machines, as well as paying the IT and dressmaking teachers’ salaries.