By Romy Hebden, Volunteer

The Foundation of Goodness has launched a major new initiative to empower the rural communities to make better progress and excel in life.

With the expert help of British architect, Ms. Kim Wright, who has donated her time and energy to this project, the Foundation now has the plans for a Learning & Empowerment Institute for North Sri Lanka.

This Institute will provide the essential services that a community needs, including medical care, English and IT teaching, business skills and women’s empowerment, children’s development, environment management, moral and cultural development activities, a Pre-School, Elders home and Orphanage as well as sports development programmes in a holistic approach that focuses on all aspects of exclusion and deprivation that affect the rural poor.

On March 1st, the Foundation of Goodness inaugurated its new office facilities at Longden Place, Colombo for the Learning & Empowerment Institute for North Sri Lanka, with special guest Mr. Sidath Wettimuny. Sidath has been supporting the Foundation since the very beginning, having grown up with Kushil and being an ardent admirer of the work for which he gave the first donation back in 1999. Similarly Sidath and his older brother Sunil, of the Wettimuny’s cricketing fame, stepped forward in early 2010 to be the first to contribute to this exciting project to bring opportunities and facilities to communities in the north.

The next steps will be to locate suitable land for this project in the central northern region, accessible to rural communities from north, east and west. The site requires approximately 25 acres, to accommodate learning and empowerment facilities to cater to 50,000 people a year from the region, in a replication of the community development model already achieving great success and international acclaim in the Seenigama region of South Sri Lanka.

The Seenigama model has grown from a modest community development project started in 1999, to a holistic approach to poverty reduction that has been recognized as the best post-tsunami model of all those studies, by R.M.I.T University, Australia. Currently the Foundation of Goodness caters to 20 000 beneficiaries from over 25 villages via 30 empowerment sectors free of cost.

With the close ties to Seenigama region and with support from various partners, the Foundation of Goodness is committed building bridges to help rural communities from across Sri Lanka to realize their dreams for a peaceful, prosperous and healthy future.

Regular up-dates of the development of this essential project will be published on this website (www.unconditional compassion.org).

Kushil is thrilled by the progress of the project so far. “It is a bigger dream than even what I had in Seenigama, as I have always wanted facilities like the ones we have in Seenigama to be available to those that need them most. It is in the rural communities that the true potential of our country lies and I am so happy to be able to do what I can, with good intentions and heartfelt compassion. I am confident that the value of this project will be recognized by donors around the world to make it a reality and am happy to have a strong team around me to help the dream come true. The Foundation of Goodness believes in helping mankind irrespective of caste, creed, religion, or otherwise, since serving humanity is the best work of life.”

“Life's most persistent and urgent question is,
'What are you doing for others?'
-Martin Luther King, Jr  

Learning & Empowerment Institute
for North Sri Lanka.

2010.03.15