The biggest impact for internally displaced children in the North is the break in education they experience because of their displacement, a situation which may often prove far-reaching in terms of their development; suggests ChildFund's National Director, Guru Naik.
A makeshift school in Galle |
As such, he indicated that ChildFund Sri Lanka will be spending between US$ 4.5 million and US$ 5.25 million on education as well as other children's issues across the country in the coming year, with an increased focus on secondary education. This policy, according to Mr. Naik, is based on papers suggesting that although Sri Lanka has a 97-98% primary education completion rates, its rates for secondary education are “very low”.
These comments were made at the re-branding of ChildFund Sri Lanka, formerly the Christian Children Fund (CCF), which has been in Sri Lanka since 1985 and currently operates in 14 districts across the country. An important feature of the re-structuring and re-branding efforts now culminating in the new ChildFund Sri Lanka organization, again according to Mr. Naik, is the added facility intrinsic in the new structure which allows enhanced fund raising capability across several new sources, such as a bump from the previous 33 member countries network to 54 countries now. This also includes new access to 12 developed countries where the earlier network only allowed access to one.
Mr. Naik also went on to indicate that ChildFund, which currently services about 18,800 children across 44 locations, will maintain its strongest efforts in areas such as the dry zone, believed to be Sri Lanka's most impoverished areas, and the estate sectors, both of which usually experience chronic shortages in resources for children. This is in addition to servicing children in post conflict zones, which are new hotspots due to public attention. (JH) |
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