Volunteer Sri Lanka

The Volunteer Sri Lanka Project is run by Janaka de Silva (the Project Manager) with the sole purpose of encouraging volunteers from around the world to come to help the poor people of his country. People with almost every skill you can think of are needed! Whatever your age, from 17 to 70, provided you are in good health we welcome you to come and help us. Whatever your skills, they can be used to alleviate suffering, improve learning, health, living conditions and the ability to earn a living, to enable children, some of whom are orphans, to have fun and bring comfort to the sick and lonely.
 
The Volunteer Sri Lanka Project offers the opportunity for volunteers to work with children and adults in many different settings. It is a non discriminatory and non religious organisation.
 
Janaka offers volunteers the opportunity to share his home with his much loved wife, 4 children, other relatives and himself. Janaka extended his home to provide good, ensuite volunteer accommodation because he feels that when people are kind enough to give their time and funds to helping the poor, they deserve to be treated well. The volunteer accommodation is a Home Stay arrangement and not a hotel. Therefore, volunteers take responsibility for managing their own rooms and laundry.
 
There are opportunities to work with orphans, with children needing help with home work after school and at weekends at the Tsunami Memorial Library, to run a sports activities, to teach at local schools, at a school with hearing impaired children, children with learning difficulties, in nursery schools, to care for the elderly, work at the teaching hospital, at the Nurses Training School, an orphanage, do DIY or building work at the Library and the Buddhist Temple, – according to each volunteer’s preference and skills.
 
Janaka wants to start skills training at the Temple to provide IT, sewing, carpentry, building, plumbing and electrical installation training. Arts and crafts skills can be taught to local people so that they can make items to sell to tourists. The plan is to start the skills training, teaching IT using the 2 secondhand laptops that have been donated. (More are needed!) The next phase of the plan is to use the small profits from the volunteer fee to buy sewing machines to provide sewing and tailoring instruction.

We need a civil engineer who can not only teach the locals, but solve the serious flooding problems at the Temple.
 
Volunteers with such skills could be instrumental in pioneering all this with Janaka. It would be an invaluable contribution to people of the local community, making the difference between people being destitute and being able to earn a modest living. Even a relatively small increase in family income can make a big difference to a family.                                        
 
The beauty of the Volunteer Sri Lanka Project is that whatever your skills, Janaka will find a way to use them so that you can help the poor. All you need to do is talk to him and he will do the rest!