Twice a week a team of 4 RLP counselors visits the Balapitiya Elders Home to look into and help the psychological needs of the inmates. It was during these routine visits that certain shortcomings at the Home became apparent to the team, icluding other needs of the inmates that were brought to their notice.

FoG donates items to Balapitiya Elders Home

A FoG team including its founder/trustee Kushil Gunasekera visited the Balalpitiya Elders Home to discern what exactly was needed. Following this the FoG donated 60 packets of Nestomalt, 15 bottles of disinfectant, 2 bottles of detergent powder and air freshner spray cans in early April, which served the most priority at the time.

This was followed by a medical camp at the Elders Home with the help of Australian volunteer Dr.Irma. Individual books for all of the 40 inmates were opened by Dr. Irma and these were handed over to the secretary of the elders home to oversee its regular maintenance for future reference. Medicines too were provided accordingly and additionally the staff at the Home were tutored and given guidelines on healthy lifestyle and food habits, for the well being of the inmates.

FoG founder/trustee Kushil Gunasekera
and his mother handover needy items
to Balapitiya Elders Home

Helping further, on the 10th of May the FoG paid the Home’s latest electricity bill of Rs 14,000, covering the recent islandwide tariff hike. A week later, Kushil Gunasekera and his mother officiated at a handover ceremony where the FoG donated a wheel chair (with a commode), two draughts boards, one fully automatic washing machine and most importantly a sound system (4 speakers, mic and funds for wiring) which would benefit the most feeble inmates to listen to religious programmes while in bed as well as other programmes of interest.

The FoG’s Colombo office took every effort to ensure that these items were ready for donation before the Wesak festival. The total spent on these items for the Balapitiya Elders Home was just over US$ 1,500.

While the FoG’s Rebuilding Lives Programme will continue its counselling work at the Balapitiya Elders Home, there are also plans to do other future projects here, to make life more comfortable for these senior citizens with the aim of elevating their quality of life. These plans include improving on the existing tranquil indoor garden, constructing a half-wall kitchen and a toilet outside and payment of wages for a fulltime janitor, all for which estimates have been called to evaluate the cost commitment required.

The Balapitiya Elders Home is one of two institutes that FoG is pleased to assist and be associated with in the area, the other being Anula Wijerama Girls Home (orphanage). Incidentally the Balapitiya Elders Home won 2nd place in the southern region for 2003 for the best kept Home the first place went to the Home for the Blind in Ambalantota.

“A good exercise for the heart is to
bend down and help another up”