Caring and sharing online
When you are constantly barraged by poverty on all sides, which is often the case in Sri Lanka, it is easy to develop a thick skin. We often find ourselves reluctant to help because you just can’t be sure if you are being swindled, or if your charity will actually help in the right way.
Children of the Manacare Foundation, one of the charities EPFS supports
But even when justified, this cynicism can leave you feeling a little cold, especially at this time of year when most want to embrace the Christmas spirit of giving.
The EPFS community did not start out with the intention of becoming an online hub of goodwill and charity. “It started purely by accident,” says founder Michael Moonasinghe.
In order to help some friends who were soon leaving Sri Lanka dispose of their furniture, Michael set up what he intended to be a temporary Facebook group called the Ex-pat Furniture Services (EPFS), with all proceeds from the sales going to charity.
“Then people started asking, can you sell my furniture too and we realised there was no real way of selling secondhand furniture in the country. So I said sure, but this is a charity site so why not give 10 percent of whatever you make to charity?”
From its chance beginnings in July last year, the group has now expanded to a thriving community of just under 9000 members of whom about 85 percent is made up of locals.
Michael Moonasinghe
“Every day we have around 20 new members joining and they tell five of their family and friends who tell five of theirs and so on. It’s free to join and everyone is welcome,” says Michael. “The group is non-political, non-religious, open to discussions, but respectful of each other.”
All activity on the group is monitored by Michael and his cousin Frances de Niese, who handles most of its online administration.
The EPFS community now provides a platform for anyone advertising or looking for jobs, property, lost and found pets and various queries and their most memorable sales so far include a 40 ft. container and a grave plot in the Borella cemetery!
What differentiates the group from a typical commercial site, however, is its sense of community. “There have been blood donations to people in intensive care – three people got blood donated within one hour of putting the message out,” says Michael.
“We’ve saved animals’ lives too, through blood donors for animals.” EPFS works closely with other welfare groups who use its vast platform to spread the message about an emergency very quickly.
“Social media gets knocked a lot for the bad things on the internet, but I think what we’ve proven here is that you can actually harness people’s good intention of wanting to help and get involved in charity with the beauty of Facebook.”
The group currently supports 19 different groups to which they contribute about Rs. 100,000 a month from the 10 percent donations of its sales and advertisements.
Having worked as a headhunter for 27 years, Michael has a knack for connecting people which he has applied here to foster sustainable partnerships between charities.
Rene Nakandala
On one occasion, he introduced a charity that makes mosquito nets to an orphanage in Tangalle who, with the high risk of dengue, was in dire need of mosquito nets for their children.
“We could buy them mosquito nets, but I asked the other charity if they would be the suppliers for this charity, if we supplied the material. They said they’d love to because they’d be making a contribution as well, instead of always being the recipient.”
“We also use crowd sourcing, so we use the group to fund things,” says Michael. One of the charities EPFS supports, the Manacare Foundation (providing work and help for children, adults and disabled) required computers for a computer club.
“They had 12 computers with only two working and I asked my IT department to have a look. They laughed when they saw the computers which had floppy disk drives!
They were completely rusted because they were by the sea.” Instead of going directly to the EPFS fund, Michael put the message out on Facebook and within 24 hours had 12 computers and six monitors donated, which they then paid to have upgraded.
“Another group wanted some paint and I said, let me do the same thing. We had 14 tins of paint donated and the interesting thing was that only two had been opened. Others had gone to the shop, bought paint and donated it. So we then got the paint sorted for nothing, and the funds are still there to help another charity.”
In order to facilitate the growing network of people and traffic on their Facebook group, EPFS is currently working on compiling a separate database on their own website, also ensuring better efficiency in an emergency.
Yet another inspiring story surrounds the young man assigned with this task. Rene Nakandala, who suffers from severe cerebral palsy, first approached Michael with a request to advertise himself on the group to gain employment.
The 24-year-old who had completed his A/Ls was struggling to find a job due to his physical disabilities. Impressed by Rene’s positive attitude and CV, Michael called him in for an interview following which he told him, “I’m not going to give you a job because you’re a disabled young man.
I am going to give you a job, on the first interview (which I never do) but it’s because you’re a smart young guy with a really great attitude and work ethic which we need more of.”
“Many people, even some in Australia, China and the United States, asked me to send them my CV,” Rene tells us, but he chose to work with Michael who had been the first to contact him. “I enjoy almost everything about working here.
We have a motive -work hard, have fun,” says Rene. In addition to organising data, Rene is also involved in visiting and writing about the group’s charities and activities from his perspective. He believes “the only disability is having the wrong attitude.”
The best thing, says Michael, is hearing how many people the group has touched. “People tell me it’s the Sri Lankan culture of passing things around the family which this has taken it to the next level.
How big it will grow, goodness knows. We think it will reach 10,000 by end of the year!”
Anyone interested, can find the EPFS community at https://www.facebook.com/groups/expatsfurnituresl