The quality of being good - be it virtue, kindness, benevolence or excellence, is a noble trait and is recognizable in ones character, disposition and conduct. It is this ‘goodness’ that forms the very base and pillars of the Foundation of Goodness (FoG) which has been working to nurture this quality in the people whose lives it touches. What better way than to start with children.

The concept of a Children’s Goodness Club was the brainwave of the founder/trustee of the Foundation of Goodness (FoG) Kushil Gunasekera, whose idea it was to start with children to bring about change for a better tomorrow as ‘children are our future’.

The Children’s Goodness Clubs
meet bi-weekly

The first Children’s Goodness Club opened in Seenigama in 2005. It was an instant and huge success. Shortly afterwards (five months later) the 2nd opened in Werallana the adjoining village and the next year another in Udumulla two villages next. Today the three Children’s Goodness clubs are fully active and are a source of fun and enjoyment for all its members who are being guided to understand and practice acts of goodness, which bring out the natural best in the children. At end February the Children’s Goodness Club in Seenigama had 93 members, Udumulla 53 and Werallana 36. The members range in age from 10 year olds to 18 year olds.

Doing Good
The list of kind and good deeds the children have been involved in include feeding birds, bathing a grandmother’s friend, holding an umbrella for a girl who was getting drenched in the rain, saving a puppy from an accident and returning it to its mother, sharing food with a friend who did not have food in school worshipping parents before turning in for the night, saving a bird from a well, informing friends about the free English lessons at the Foundation and encouraging them to join, teaching prayers to grandmothers friends, convincing a friend to observe Buddhist religious rites, picking up stones from the railway track, taking in dry clothes while neighbor was away when it was started to rain, cleaning a religious place of worship, giving up a seat to an elder in the bus - the list is endless.

The Children engage in
a beach cleaning programme

The three clubs hold separate bi-weekly meetings. However, in the run-up to a big planned event they meet weekly. The clubs are led by a president, secretary, committee members and village coordinators and also have another coordinator based at the Foundation’s city office. It is this team that is responsible for planning the children’s activities which include community service (cleaning elders homes, beach cleaning) handicraft exhibitions, concerts, reading goodness activity books, observing Buddhist religious rites, cleaning the temple area, holding children's fairs, holding of flower dansala (stall) near the temple on Poya days, art exhibitions, showing gratitude to mothers’ on mothers’ day, home gardening, fostering friendships with other children's clubs in the area, competitions (debates, sports etc.) In March, a children's fair and the cleaning of an elders’ home are the activity agenda.

flower dansala and other
Buddhist religious activities

The Future
The Children’s Goodness Club while encouraging children to partake in noble acts also has plans to arm them for the future in the world outside. On the long term plan for the clubs is the intent to ensure the children are provided access to improve their computer skills and English language fluency. In the future the children can also benefit from other planned programmes on the agenda, such as using vision boards to help children achieve their ambitions, discussing unacceptable qualities and vices, discussing cheating at examinations, drug, alcohol & smoking, love affairs, using mobile phones etc., looking at nutrition and fitness, encouraging the children to look inwards, imparting knowledge on home remedies, teaching children to recycle and to go green.

It is sometimes felt that parents learn a lot from their children, and it is the hope of the Foundation of Goodness (FoG) that what these absorbent minds pick up through the Children’s Goodness Clubs will be picked up by others who they interact with.  Commenting on the success of the Children’s Goodness Clubs founder/trustee of the Foundation of Goodness (FoG) Kushil Gunasekera said that “the concept of establishing the Children’s Goodness Club was to instill good human values at a very tender age based on the same experience I had growing up as a child in a village from my mother and father. The idea is to inculcate in them good attitudes, kindness, generosity, integrity, humility, forgiveness, patience, tolerance, discipline and to be duty bound etc. It is all about doing good and being good with non harm to one self and non harm to others in relation to what does not please me how can I inflict upon another. One of the mothers’ who met me at a recent get together of the Children’s Goodness Club commented how her stubborn, selfish and unkind daughter had eliminated these poor qualities by changing for the better absorbing goodness instead which is a good sign and a tribute to this worthy and meaningful program.”

Children are the living messages
we send to a time we will not see.
-John W. Whitehead

2009.03.02