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PROJECTS | Case Studies | Sri Lanka |   |
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| Tanzania | India | Uganda | Cambodia | Sri Lanka | Kenya (WEAEP) | Kenya (Wema) | |
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Shilpa Children’s Trust – Support for families affected by the Tsunami Shilpa Children’s Trust, based in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, is ICT’s longest standing partner. Initially established to provide refuge for children displaced by the civil war, Shilpa now also provides support for unskilled youths and impoverished women, especially single mothers. Following the 2004 Asian Tsunami, Shilpa expanded its area of work to cover Hambantota, one of the districts in the south of the country worst affected by the disaster. One of the many children who received support from Shilpa was Shanthi. |
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Shanthi used to live with her parents and two siblings in a small coastal village in Hambantota. Her mother would stay at home to care for Shanthi and her siblings, while her father worked at the local saltworks. In December 2004, Shanthi’s mother was killed by the tsunami, which hit the southern and eastern coasts of Sri Lanka and resulted in the death of approximately 40,000 people. Following the loss of her mother, Shanthi’s father was forced to give up work to look after the family. At the time, Shanthi was studying for her university entrance exams. Because of the trauma she suffered, Shanthi failed to secure a place at university and, at the same time, her father started to struggle to support the family. When social workers from Shilpa visited, they found that the family was in a desperate situation. Following an assessment of the family’s needs, Shilpa started providing financial assistance for the children’s most basic needs – food, healthcare, clothing and education – through its child sponsorship programme, which eased the financial strain significantly. To help Shanthi and her siblings cope with the trauma they suffered, they took part in a number of art therapy workshops run by Shilpa. Art can be an extremely effective way of encouraging children who have suffered traumatic events to express themselves. “We were asked to draw what we saw when the tsunami struck Sri Lanka, which in turn helped us to get over the horror picture we had in our minds.” The social worker made regular visits to the family to offer help and advice. With this support, Shanthi’s father was able to return to work. Having expressed an interest in beginning work herself, Shanthi enrolled on a vocational training course in brick-making run by Shilpa, which she completed in late 2008. With a small loan provided by Shilpa, Shanthi has recently established her own business making and selling bricks for the local community. Her older sister has just enrolled on a sewing and embroidery course and her brother is doing extremely well at school. Thanks to ongoing support from Shilpa, Shanthi and her family now have a chance of a brighter, happier future. |
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