Every year, for all the birthdays in my family, we have made it a habit to help the homeless or the people suffering from poverty in Sri Lanka. We serve either cash, rice packets, clothes or other basic household needs such as school books, school necessities. We usually discover these people on streets or near religious places. There are several times where we carried some of the reusable clothes and more new clothes, for children as well as for adults, to local cities such as Anuradhapura, Kataragama, Mahiyanganaya and distributed them.  This month for my birthday we ordered some rice packets and served to around 70 people in the Kelaniya temple. The most precious thing to witness then is their genuine smiles on their faces and their words of blessings towards us mean a lot.     

Moreover, there are few familiar and kind-hearted figures, who are in need, visiting our house once in a while. So whenever we receive clothes that we do not like or the clothes that we don’t like to wear anymore we pile them in a separate drawer and serve them when they arrive. Not just clothes, but also books and other stuff needed for school are given out.  As they always come from far away places and look tired, we even provide a good meal and cash for their travel expenses.  

As a matter of fact, “poverty” is a major issue in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, it is not a new concept here; it doesn’t even seem to end sooner. In particular, the rural parts of the country are struggling to survive with the content they have. Some migrate to the urbanized areas in the western province to find jobs. But not everyone who arrives is capable of finding proper jobs. The ones who fail to find an appropriate job either leave back to where they’re headed from; but the people who are out of money tend to stick to the same place. Eventually, they could end up being street-people. Due to this, at the moment, people who are struggling with poverty are abundant even in Colombo or any other Western region. In regards of this matter, we thought helping them with some of the basic needs is a timely action to overcome this issue. 

Not everybody is rich; and not everybody has to be rich to help others. As long as you could be sincere with your own feelings and you feel like helping the ones in need, then you must be helping them. Even the simplest things are great deeds for the right people. 

We all might be strangers from different mothers, but aren’t we from the same nation? After all, all of us are human-beings, survivors, living-beings and more importantly part of this natural world and creation of nature. Thus, we have to make it a duty to support each other and normalize equality. 

 

LEARNING OUTCOMES

LO2 : Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

Lo4 : Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

LO5 : Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

LO6 : Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

LO7 : Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions