Kind Dutch lady, architect of Beredina helps underprivileged children
View(s):Concerns about people living below the poverty line in Sri Lanka’s plantation sector led to the creation of NGO Berendina, founded by Ms Berendina Borst from the Netherlands. She had visited Sri Lanka in 1982 and found pathetic conditions in the villages at Garagoda, Yatiyantota. She began providing assistance to support livelihoods of these marginalised people -reflecting the true meaning of micro finance. Berendina has now grown to be a massive community services-based NGO that has supported 83,000 families with an annual budget of Rs. 2 billion working on poverty elevation, water, sanitation, social issues and youth employment.
Last week in Colombo, Beredina and ‘Give2Lanka’, a new NGO, joined hands to commemorate the achievements and recognise the talents of underprivileged students in the rural areas helped by Beredina. The event was more or less to profile ‘Give2Lanka’, the newest corporate entity affiliated to Berendina which specially promotes providing scholarships to the underprivileged students in these remote areas and to seek assistance to sustain and continue the ‘Scholarship programme’. Dulan de Silva, head of Give2Lanka, told the the Business Times on the sidelines of the event that he was heading Berendina from 1992 to 2015.
He left Berendina to form Give2Lanka and the formation of this new entity is to increase the annual quota of 1,000 scholarships by Berendina to 10,000 annually by 2020 on a well-structured programme. Scholarships are offered to follow GCE OL and AL and thereafter university degree course and other professional courses and to sustain the project funds are solicited from the public, companies and other NGO partners. Among many success stories of Berendina assistance is the case of Ms. K.G. Malkanthi, who is in her second year management degree at the Sri Jayawardenepura University and also pursuing Chartered Accountancy.
She told this newspaper that her family – altogether three girls and their mother – are from Lakshapana, Nuwara Eliya. Grief stricken Ms. Malkanthi said that their father died when she was three years old. She studied at the Lakshapana Central College. Her sick mother brought up the family with the little income made from making jaggery (Hakuru). She did her A’ Level in the Commerce stream and was adjudged first in the Nuwara Eliya district in that stream. She told BT even with this achievement it was impossible for her mother to support her education with the meagre income from jaggery and was on the verge of stopping further education.
However she was determined to continue her higher studies and wondered how to find the finances when she was told about Berendina.
A gleaming Ms. Malkanthi said that since the last five years she has been supported by Berendina. Earlier she was given Rs. 500 per month and now with the university studies she receives Rs 1,000 per month. She said Berendina not only supported her but also assisted her mother to improve her industry, adding that she would be ever grateful to the organisation. Mr. De Silva said that these scholarships are for children from poor families.
After two years the scholarship holders are given career counselling and if they do not get sufficient marks to follow a higher education course they would be referred to private sector companies. About 300 such companies are registered with Berendina. They would support those scholarship holders to even sit the GCE A’ Level the second time, if the family cannot afford it, he said. Speaking on the progress of their ambitious programme of achieving an annual scholarship offer of 10,000 , he said that within the scheme they have now reached an annual target of 2,250 scholarships and is confident that they could reach the target but hard work is ahead to collect necessary funds - (QP)