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Helping hand at the doorstep

By Marisa de Silva

Want to help?
The Hostel Ladies’ Committee has organized a jumble sale on March 31 from 10.30 a.m.- 5 p.m., at the Friend-in-Need Society premises, Colombo 2, to collect money for the maintenance fund. All those interested could make donations in either cash or kind, as money saved up on daily expenses such as meals etc., can be put to better use by improving the inmates' living conditions and helping with the crutches fund, established to donate crutches to amputees.

Cheques can be written in favour of the Colombo Friend-in-Need Society, with a note attached, specifying the Hostel Maintenance Fund.

Two years ago, little Harshini Kumari Pathiraja, 7, was living with her father in their hometown in Narammala as her mother worked abroad. One night her father had a particularly ugly verbal brawl with their abusive, drunken neighbour. The dispute ended with her father kicking him out of the house, but not before his menacing threat of "Let's see what happens..."

Later that same night, in response to Harshini's repeated pleas that they go to her aunt's house, they had set off with the father carrying her, when out of nowhere, their neighbour jumped out of the darkness and slashed her leg off.

Ever since then the little girl managed with one leg, until she was discovered by the Friend-in-Need Society's (FINS) mobile workshop and brought to Colombo. She has now been given a prosthetic leg. Her attacker still roams free as his whereabouts are unknown and her case is pending in the High Court.
Young Gayan Premaratne seems like any other average 16-year-old except that he's minus half a leg and most of the other. Six years ago, when Gayan was on his way to school with his friends, they had seen a bus heading towards them and tried to cross the road quickly to avoid it. Unfortunately for young Gayan, he stumbled in the rush and fell, only to feel the agony of the bus going over his legs.

One leg couldn't be saved below the knee, whilst the other had been skinned to the bone. Gayan went about his daily routine with his nearly useless leg and a crutch, until he heard that the FINS' mobile service was in his town. He was brought to Colombo a few days ago to be fitted with an artificial limb.

The court ordered the bus's insurance company to pay compensation of Rs. 7 lakhs to Gayan for the loss of his legs. It's been six years but he is yet to see one cent.

Though no compensation has come, help was at hand for Gayan through the FINS' mobile service project. FINS operates a fully equipped bus, which travels monthly from district to district conducting workshops where people could get personalized limbs or repairs to their existing limbs etc.

The bus was donated to FINS by Hope for Children, UK and the Princess Diana Fund. Established in 1831 by Governor Edward Barnes, as a transit hospital during the war, the Friend-in-Need Society is Sri Lanka's oldest charity. It has now been transformed into a workshop cum transit hostel cum rehabilitation unit. FINS provides prosthetic limbs and other special devices to enable mobility for people suffering from diabetes, congenital deformities, landmine and other accidents.

The Hostel Ladies’ Committee (HLC), a co-group of FINS manages the transit hostel, where they provide accommodation and meals free of charge for all amputees who need to stay on for after-care and rehabilitation.

Currently this hostel houses up to 30 inmates at a time and accommodates and feeds up to 100 amputees every month.

Prof. P.K. Sethi started the Jaipur Foot Programme locally in 1983. Once it was launched, he trained two technicians in the art of prosthetic limb making in Jaipur, India. Creating the Jaipur Foot was very much the need of the hour at the time, as western prosthetics weren't adaptable to our people. A prosthetic that was more suitable to our way of life had to be made. Prof. Sethi's low cost, hardy, flesh coloured prosthetics were an asset during that era.

However, now as times and also the nature of amputee injuries have changed, more modernized limbs are needed. These new limbs are more lightweight and enable the user to carry out his everyday activities easily. FINS is now a one-stop shop, where amputees can obtain custom-made limbs, be rehabilitated by trained physiotherapists and receive accommodation and meals, all free of charge.

This is a mammoth task undertaken by this group of volunteers and they could use all the help they can get from generous donors.

Body blow to the bus

Though a donation from abroad to be used by a charitable organization run by volunteers, FINS has now been asked to pay VAT on the mobile bus to the tune of Rs. 358,000, on the grounds that it could be utilized for other purposes.

However, one glance at the bus's interior shows that using it for other purposes would be an impossibility, as it has been stripped of all its seats and equipped with a comprehensive mini workshop.

Therefore, we are left to wonder what kind of other services we could be providing with this bus, says Mrs. Kalyani Ranasinghe, President, FINS.

Many appeals to the government over the past year had been of no avail until they approached Minister of Economic Reform, Science and Technology, Milinda Moragoda. The Minister has now promised to reimburse the money FINS was taxed on the bus, through the private sector or some other means, rather than from the state.

However, the problems don't end there. Starting this year, the usually duty-free raw material FINS imports from abroad has now been put under 2% duty tax by the government.

This poses quite a problem for FINS, as they require raw material to carry out their daily work. Should not the government, especially as the patron of FINS is the President, be supportive of their work?

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