Appe Lanka to help Poonekary bloom again
View(s):By Kaveesha Fernando
Poonekary, which means village of flowers, is a small village west of Kilinochchi. With a population of about 19,000, many of the villagers earn their living through farming or fishing. After suffering from years of devastation following three decades of war, they face many challenges in rebuilding their lives. Appé Lanka is a project which aims to help the people of Poonekary achieve sustainable development.
A rural development project which began in 2015, Appe Lanka has been endorsed by the Ministry of Resettlement and Reconstruction. The programme was initiated by Shaan Corea, who has a background in television and has been working on education and awareness programmes where she collaborated with established organizations to promote awareness on different topics.
A project aimed at helping young students.
The project has four main goals – providing renewable energy, psychological empowerment, raising awareness and improving livelihoods. As a part of their first goal, a pilot project providing renewable energy to 28 households has already been successfully completed. They plan to provide renewable energy to all the households in Poonekary. As a part of their psycho-social empowerment programme they have trained 30 counsellors in four schools and hope to reach the 23 schools of Poonekary to provide the students guidance and support on various issues such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and peer pressure etc.
Shaan Corea. Pic by Indika Handuwala
As for raising awareness, lectures have been held in the village on issues such as home emergencies, accidents, maternity health and child care, communicable and non-communicable diseases. To improve livelihoods, they have been teaching English starting with school children, youth and the working population.
Shaan feels that although they already had certain goals in mind, certain issues were only highlighted when she went to Poonekary. “ I learnt that a lot of schoolchildren drop out of school after their O’L examination because there is no short distance transport in the area and they have no way of travelling to the schools which have Advanced Level studies,” says Shaan, adding that this was something she had not thought of. Appé Lanka is organising a bike drive to raise the money for 150 bicycles to help such students stay in school, with people having already pledged enough funds for the bicycles.
Overall, Shaan feels that although they only have four main goals, they have identified other additional areas which they need to work on as well. They estimate that four years will be needed to work with the people of Poonekary.
Shaan stresses that the “easy thing to do and what people would want us to do is the tangible things like solar energy and the bicycles but the intangible things like psychosocial empowerment are the most important.” Appé Lanka is here to stay in Poonekary – to make the flowers of the village bloom again.