Helping underprivileged youth
The Sanjiv Mendis Memorial Foundation entered into a partnership with SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka to provide financial support to upgrade the SOS Vocational Training Centre, Anuradhapura. Mr. Ricky Mendis, Chairman, The Sanjiv Mendis Memorial Foundation presented a cheque for Rs. 8,064,022/= to Mrs. Sandhya Weerasinghe, President, Board of Directors, SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka at a meeting held at the Hotel TajSamudraon May 30, 2013.
Mrs. Charmaine Mendis, Director, The Sanjiv Mendis Memorial Foundation, Mrs. Malsiri Dias, immediate past President, Board of Directors, SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka,Mr. Ananda Karunarathne, National Director,SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka, Mr. Selvam Mather, Director, The Sanjiv Mendis Memorial Foundation and Mr. Ravindra Ruberu, were present at the meeting.
The very generous donation from The Sanjiv Mendis Memorial Foundation will be utilized towards, equipping the SOS-VTC, Anuradhapura with modern machinery and apparatus to provide vocational training for youths from the families living under the poverty line in the Anuradhapura district.
Mr. and Mrs Ricky Mendis, parents of the late SanjivMendis, established the SanjivMendis Memorial Foundation, in 1991. The Foundation has in the past organized Island wide Art Competitions and awarded Gold medals for excellence, in addition to supporting many charitable causes, primarily thosethat were of special interest to Sanjiv himself.
SOS Vocational Training Centre (VTC), Anuradhapura, which is an ancillary project of SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka, was initiated in 1997 as an extension of the work that SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka was doing (when the peace talks were in progress) with the war affected families at Wahalkada and Kapachchi. Subsequently, due to obvious reasons the VTC started to cater only to the youth (O/L dropouts) in the Anuradhapura district that are from families living under the poverty line.
Training courses offered by the VTC, Anuradhapura include, Welding (Arc and Gas), and Motor Mechanism. Since the inception of the VTC, three hundred and sixty eight (368) youth have successfully completed training and found jobs, locally & abroad or started self-employment that provides sustainable income for their families.
This VTC was registered under the Tertiary & Vocational Education Commission of Sri Lanka (TVEC) in March 1999 (Registration No. P16/0041) and both Welder & Automobile Mechanic Courses were awarded with National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) Level 3 status in November 2007 and January 2012 respectively.
Mr Ananda Karunarathne, National Director, SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka said “This facility was started as a full-fledged Vocational Training Centre and therefore, initially it was able to provide quality training to vulnerable youth. However, with the development of new technology and curricula, today, the VTC is unable to deliver up to date, training that keeps pace with modern and future technological requirements, mainly due to lack of contemporary machinery and apparatus. Re equipping the SOS-VTC, Anuradhapura with modern machinery is a timely requirement and SOS Children’s Villages Sri Lanka is very thankful to The Sanjiv Mendis Memorial Foundation for making this donation to improve the effectiveness of the SOS-VTC, Anuradhapura”.
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