My next long term travel destination is Sri Lanka,  my birth country!  I have booked tickets to head over in November.   I cant wait to take my kids there and  show  them a different part of world.  The plan is to live there with my kids for 6 months.  It will be me and my two kids, my husband can’t take time off this time round to go with us, but I have all my extended family there which gives me strength.

I cant help but feel the strong need to do something good when I am Si Lanka…. I have already begun collecting money for my charity project with a 30% off sale on my handmade online jewelry Etsy shop  Kookki Designs.  Please pop over to my Facebook page to share this sale with your online friends and family, I can guarantee that the money collected from now till November will be put into a good cause!

In Sri Lanka poverty is at 6.4%.  When you consider the population of 20 million, this number is quite significant.  According to and article on Sunday Times it is possible to have a poverty free Sri Lanka with a bit of help.  I know there are large charity organizations doing a lot of work, but a lot more giving and help is needed to overcome such a massive issue.  Most people who live in poverty are in villages and rural areas.  So I would like to visit these places, talk to the people, see the schools and get to the source of the problem which is education!

I have always wanted to be able to make a difference in the world in some small way I can.  One time, before kids, I went over to Sri Lanka on a short holiday with an idea to  set up a charity, I went to a village school where I encountered the saddest faces I have seen in my life.  It was heart wrenching to even see young kids feeling the weight of life, most kids didn’t even have anything to eat, and their faces told me stories that I knew if asked I would have been reduced down to tears.  So that time I walked away with setting up three bank accounts for three kids where they will get a $8 (Australian) per month each, yes that was all they needed to get what they needed to make it through school.  Can you believe it, You can change someone’s life with the cost of 2 coffees per month!!!!

The letters I get from my sponsored kids and seeing how well they are doing in school makes me really happy as if I am fulfilling a purpose in my life:)

I am writing this post with the intention of growing what I did by my self in a very small scale.  I want to be able to help many more kids that are in dire need and collectively make this world place that is better for everyone.  I feel quite passionate about setting up a charity so more people can help kids who are born into poverty.  And I know there are a lot of people that would like to help in someway!

This $8 a month per child sponsoring program should be affordable for many of us living a comfortable life in the developed countries.   How I set my little program was by setting up a committee in a school with a lot of children in need.  This committee consists of school principal and teachers who will act as the children’s guardians.  A bank account is then opened under each child that will be sponsored, but to access money for the  childrens’ needs the committee will have to act as their guardians till they turn 18.  The reason for a committee and not the parents acting as guardians is to protect the kids and their bank accounts as in most cases the very reason these kids are in poverty are the lack of education and planing skills of their parents who are addicted to alcohol and a poor way of life.   The aim of this sponsorship program is to break that poverty cycle by educating these kids.

This sponsorship program may come to fruition by setting up a website with profiles of the children needing help with a Paypal payment facility where the money can be transferred to the students bank account.  Or working with another established Charity organisation ( please let me know if you know of one that I can work with).  I have not yet figured out the nitty gritty, It will be a bit of work but I would love to see this project up and running next year.  Again any helpful ideas on this matter will be much appreciated!   I will keep you posted on my progress on this matter on this blog, Instagram and facebookpage.

This time when I go, I will have over 6 months to really work on a project or a few projects to make a difference while enjoying this beautiful part of the world.

These are some of my ideas, I need to research a lot more and with some more help and my Etsy shop money I hope to find ways to make these ideas a reality…

1. A $8 a month sponsorship program for kids in extreme poverty, where the sponsors money goes straight to the child’s bank account and the sponsor gets correspondence from the child.
2. Send money to buy and distribute basic school items like pens, pencils, books, rubbers, colour pencils directly to village schools
3. Send our used clothes (summer clothes), shoes and bags to Sri Lanka and distribute them to poor village schools, orphanages and charity foundations in Sri Lanka
4. Run a lunch program in very poor village schools to provide at least one meal for kids that go with nothing to eat (In Sri Lanka a simple lunch item will cost under a $1 per person).
5. Set up a work space for women struggling to find work to support themselves and their families and let them manage and run it as a small business.

I would welcome any comments, suggestions or ideas on this topic.  Please feel free to let me know how and what ways you may be able to join or give me helpful ideas to make a difference in Sri Lanka!