A place for the children

Young victims of poverty, the 2004 tsunami and the ethnic conflict, find a ray of hope in a day care centre put up in Trincomalee by the Sunshine Charity

After the tsunami struck Sri Lanka, life for many children has become a daily struggle as families rebuild not only their homes, but their lives as well.

In addition to the tsunami, the 22 year-old ethnic conflict has destroyed homes, families and taken the lives of innocent children.

Prior to the tsunami, extended family structures enabled relatives to look after children, while parents were at work. However, after the tsunami devastation, the issue of single parent mothers placed day care centres at the top of the priority list – after education and health.

In recognition of this need, The Sunshine Charity, a non-profit trust was registered in February last year. “Even though we set up the charity with the primary objective of helping children affected by the tsunami, we discovered that it was not possible to differentiate between those affected by the tsunami, poverty or the conflict which has affected the country for the past 20 years,” said trustee Sharadha De Saram, adding that they had sought the advice of UNICEF and learnt that day care centres were the need of the hour.

It all started when the Fernando and De Saram families visited some of the affected areas soon after the tsunami. After listening to stories of anguish and loss they were inspired to provide help in a more focused way through the setting up of a charity. The charity’s contribution to the relief efforts would include short-term as well as long-term activities.

Their next visit was to the Eastern Province where they distributed relief items to a few camps. After completing the initial relief activities, they set up a temporary shelter next to a camp in Kuchchaveli in the Trincomalee district. As this camp was located by a mango tree, they called it The Mango Tree Project.

The trustees of the Sunshine Charity are Angelika Fernando, Director Paradise Road Company, and her two daughters Annika and Saskia Fernando, Sharadha De Saram- independent media consultant and member National Board, Habitat for Humanity and her two children, Tesali and Sergei Ishviyan De Saram.

Eighteen months after the tsunami, they constructed a permanent day care centre in Sambalthivu, Trincomalee to look after the needs of 25 children affected by both the tsunami and the ethnic conflict.

The centre cares for children between the ages of two and six. Generous giving by local and overseas philanthropists and funding provided by the Asia Foundation’s Give2Asia will be supporting the Sunshine Day Care Centre’s operational costs for two years, as well as the construction of its playground.

Located at the 6th milepost in Iluppaikulam Sambalthivu, the centre borders the land allocated to the international NGO, Habitat for Humanity. “This was an advantage as we would be then serving an established community,” says Sharadha. Food is prepared and served to the children from the Sunshine Kitchen which is part of the centre.

The Sunday Times learns that the current situation in the Eastern Province has not affected the running of the day care centre. With the current clashes, the centre is also providing shelter for children from the orphanage run by Sunshine’s partner, the Grace Education Care Centre of Nilaveli, Trincomalee.

In spite of the sporadic fighting in Trincomalee, the Sunshine Charity was able to recently hold the three-day creative Muppet Theatre workshop at their day care centre in Sambalthivu. “The programme was a great success with more than 40 children participating. For the children it was the first time since the tsunami that they had been given the opportunity to participate in such a creative workshop,” Sharadha remarked, pointing out that this project is among the many psycho-social recovery programmes that they have lined up for the children.

“Our call was to translate dreams into ideas, experiences into understanding, knowledge into wisdom…The transformation of these ideals led us to our single minded commitment to establish the Sunshine Day Care Centre,” says Sharadha. “It all started as a dream and we feel very happy now that we are realising it.”