Help Us Give Back - Volunteering in a Sri Lankan Orphanage

Help Us Give Back - Volunteering In A Sri Lankan Orphanage

Project 2017-06-05 14:59:42 +1200

On August the 5th 2017, we will be flying out to Columbo - the capital of Sri Lanka - and from there taking a two hour drive to a small sea-side village called Ambalangoda. The reason for this journey is that we are going to spend one month there, volunteering in a local orphanage, helping out with the day to day lives of the children who live there. 

Last year we both finished high school, and we decided to take this year as a gap year before going to Uni, so that we could work our way towards this trip that we are truely very passionate about. This is not just a holiday for us, and it's also not about us, it's about giving back to people who need it.

Why Sri Lanka? When we came to organise this trip we knew we wanted to volunteer, we just didn't know where. We are going with a volunteering organisation called Plan My Gap Year who send people all over the world every month, to volunteer in various situations. And they had a LOT of countries to chose from, so we had a bit of a research and after lots of chopping and changing settled on Sri Lanka.

Because Sri Lanka is so many things. We were impressed that such a small country had such a complex culture, one which is home to many religions, languages and ethnic groups. It's one of 25 biodiversity hotspots in the world, and has the highest biodiversity density in Asia, famously being known for its Asian elephants and national wildlife reserves. And they grow tea! What more could we want.

Yet while it has all these amazing aspects, there is so much in Sri Lanka that needs help. It's recent history has been utterly tragic, marred by a 30 year long civil war that only ended in 2009. Children were not left out of this. Approximately 100,000 people were killed in the Sri Lankan Civil War, many of which left behind children. Another outcome of the war means that a quarter of Sri Lanka lives below the poverty line, and children are the most vulnerable in these types of circumstances.

But we don't have to accept these sorts of circumstances, in Sri Lanka or anywhere else in the world. We can help, and that's the plan. At the orphanage we will be helping some of the children who have been caught up in all this. Playing with them, talking with them, teaching them English - and we're sure they'll have lots to teach us - and just taking part in their daily routines, hoping to bring some normalcy to their lives. The money raised on this pledge fundraiser will go towards fun travel things like vaccines and visas etc, and to help us get there, but also we hope to buy a few things for the kids when we are there. Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated by us, and even more by them.

Thank You!

Ella Yiannett and Tia Hibbert :)

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