The Foundation of Goodness (FoG) recognizes that women are the heartbeat of the family and as such has been focusing many of its livelihoods and skills training programmes to better serve the women in Seenigama and its surrounding region.
Amongst these training programmes for women are beauty culture, beeralu lace making, sewing & dress making classes, patchwork sewing classes and general cookery & dessert making classes. In addition to these, classes are also underway on two new programmes – cookery specializing in bakery products and industrial sewing machine training.
These free of charge skills and livelihoods training programmes enable the women of Seenigama and the surrounding regions to engage in self employment or to set up their own home-based businesses, whereby income generation for their household is enhanced. Some have found employment at existing enterprises while others have gone on to start their own home-based enterprise.
 The graduation ceremony at Udumulla
where 33 students passed out
Recently, 171 women graduated from five courses conducted in two different locations. This was the second batch to graduate.
On the morning of 21st June 33 women who excelled in Sewing & Dress Making in the class conducted by FoG’s Village Heartbeat Project, were awarded their diplomas at a simple ceremony in Udumulla.
 Some of the graduates at MCC COE
Later in the day at the FoG’s MCC centre of Excellence 138 women were awarded certificates. Of them 117 got diplomas, these were for Beauty Culture (38 women) Beeralu Lace Making (10 women) Sewing & Dress Making (35 women) and Patchwork Sewing (35 women) while 21 women got certificates for General Cookery & Dessert Making.
The students who topped the class in each programme were given cash awards as well. The 1st place received Rs.5,000/- the 2nd place Rs.3,000/- and 3rd place Rs.2,000/-.
 The students’ creations on display
A bridal display and handicraft show was put on after the awards ceremony at the MCC Centre of Excellence, where students of the various programmes and guests could enjoy each others creations.
All programmes are six months training and are conducted by experts in the relevant fields. Ms. Volga Subashini handles Sewing & Patchwork, Industrial Sewing Machine classes & Cookery classes, Ms. Rashika Krishanthi is in charge of the Beauty Culture classes, Ms. Dhammika Rohini teaches Beeralu Lace Making and Mr. Venura Sajith conducts the General Cookery & Dessert Making classes.
All classes except for the General Cookery & Dessert Making follow a laid down system whereby the students’ work is assessed 50% from the final theory exam, 40% through practicals and 10% from attendance. The ladies worked very hard to earn their certificates and were spurred by the incentive of a cash award for topping their class.
It must be mentioned that all these five training programmes for women are made possible through kind and magnanimous sponsorships from International Youth Foundation USA and Nokia, USA.
The FoG’s founder/trustee Kushil Gunasekera commenting on the success of these classes said “empowering women in the rural sector is a real blessing and we are delighted to this free of cost, thanks to the exceptional kindness shown by IYF and Nokia both of the USA. Elaborating further he said the facility now caters to about 150 women at a time for a period of 6 months. Acknowledging the woman’s role Gunasekera said “women make a positive difference to a family and in this context to help them make progress is an absolute privilege.”
“There are no mistakes, no coincidences.
All events are blessings given to
us to learn from.”
– Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
2008.07.14 |
