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Image: GFF Representative Tharaka Munidasa (right) and GFF India Manager Saom Namchu (left) at the entrance to SANASA Campus in Kegalle
GFF began our work in Sri Lanka in 2019 with GFF Representative Tharaka Munidasa helping to facilitate a partnership with local NGO, SANASA and, thereby, establishing a new location for the HELPS program.
SANASA is a large NGO with a high standing in the community with a tremendous reach and vast expertise. They follow a cooperative philosophy and one of their main goals is to uplift communities in a way that encourages local empowerment and ownership. It’s SANASA Campus is a community-based, non-profit co-operative sector university. GFF HELPS will be working closely with this campus.
Some of the broader needs identified in these communities are economic empowerment, health services and education programs. More specifically, there is a need to develop more income generation opportunities in local villages to retain skilled youth who opt to leave the community in search of better opportunities, causing a skill drain in the area. There are also not many educational opportunities, particularly for learning English, IT and business skills.
Based on this, we have begun on several introductory projects, including:
- Teaching English to campus students to transfer their skills onto the village community and assisting the Centre for Cooperatives and Community Studies (CCCS) to educate the wider community.
- An IT skills development program for students and the local community.
- Village projects including digital learning, environmental awareness and recycling, heath workshops, first aid training and educational workshops.
- Opening the a new IT Department at the SANASA campus, sponsored by GFF.
If you would like to join this program, we currently have a vacancy. Please see our vacancy advert.