Wednesday 19 November 2008

How did it all start?

A little story about how the Sri Lanka Card project started



In 2005 after the Tsunami many camps were set up and orphanages to take in families who had been displaced or children who had lost their parents. A group of volunteers realized that life for the kids in the camps must be pretty boring, so they started running art and activity workshops. Some also taught sport, some sang, some juggled; each one found whatever skill they had and they brought it to share and entertain the displaced families and their children.

The volunteers started running these workshops not only for tsunami affected people but for children in deprived areas and orphanages also. What they soon realized is that, as a result of these fun activity workshops, they could raise money for the comunity for food supplies, clothes, medicine, and whatever else was needed. So they started colouring shapes and pictures that could then be made into seasonal greeting cards and sold them to the friends and families of the volunteers and also to local businesses.

100% of the proceeds from the sales went to benefit the children. They used the money to buy important supplies such as bed sheets, insect repellent systems, water purifiers, light bulbs, shoes, clothes, sports equipment and then spent the money they had left on taking the children to the local adventure park and zoo on Christmas day.

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