Dear club members, dear other club supporters,
The world is voting, the USA has presented President Trump, Sri Lanka gave the new president an absolute majority in parliament last Thursday and Germany will probably also be able to vote in the new year. Hopefully it will help – against wars, climate catastrophes and social hardship. Regardless of this, the ‘Rosenkinder’ and our projects are still urgently needed in Sri Lanka. The new balance of power there will not change this. The country is poor and lacks a social system for family tragedies.
As announced and invited by me and also noticed by many local association members, we ‘celebrated’ NOT RELATED MEETS SURASANKA on 9 November 2024. A really great event, with a full town hall in Uetersen and really generous donations for a ‘Rosenkinder’ project at the end. More on this later. First:
1. Current project “Rosenkinder” Sponsorship in cooperation with the Lions Club Aluthgama/Bentota
The second funding period 2024 is currently running and our pupils and students are certainly very hard-working. When we are back in Sri Lanka in February 2025, we will see the current 73 girls and boys again. Some of them will have graduated from school or completed their studies by then. New ‘rose children’ ask for our support. During the course of the year, however, there is always personal contact with our children. This has been the case with Nishani – our ‘rose child’ since 2008, when she was unable to take up her desired teaching degree after a-level due to corona. In the meantime, she has been studying English intensively. She has finally been studying for a good year now. Thanks to her excellent English skills, she is already allowed to teach the subject as part of her degree programme.
It’s nice to have direct personal contact with one or other of our sponsored children over the course of the year. Email, whatsapp or messenger make it possible.
2. Current project special education at the Anula Wijerama Children Home in Balapitiya in cooperation with the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC)
What would our project in Balapitiya be without the commitment of Petra Gerlings on site. She is in Sri Lanka for the second time this year and is fully active in supporting the 30 girls currently there. Our main focus, the support of the oldest girls who will have to leave home in the future, is currently demanding full commitment. Discussions with these girls, the committee of the house, but also with the youth welfare office and parents, if available, are on the agenda. Last Sunday, for example, we had our usual quarterly Zoom dialogue with the oldest girls, the committee and the indispensable English teacher. This was also because the results of this year’s o-level exam were now available and so the individual prospects can be assessed. We have spoken to 8 girls. 6 of them will leave Balapitiya next year, 5 of them will start an apprenticeship. We will meet three of them in February 2025 at the ‘Rosenkinder Hostel’ in Panadura. One girl will start an apprenticeship as a dental assistant, another as a baker. The outstanding result, however, is that ‘our’ Woshini will start studying music in Colombo in January 2025 after two years of endeavour and our and especially Petra’s support. She is the first girl in the 50 years of existence of the Anula Wijerama Children Home in Balapitiya to begin her studies. Anula celebrated its 50th birthday this November, founded in 1974, and the President of ACBC Mr Wakishta and the head of all 17 ACBC children’s homes in Sri Lanka Mrs Nilika were there to congratulate Woshini on the home’s birthday and to honour her for her achievements. 30 minus 6 are 24 remaining girls in Balapitiya in January. The continuing difficult economic and social situation for the Sri Lankan families as well as referrals by the courts and youth welfare offices will quickly fill the gap again.
3. Children Home for blind and deaf-mute Children in Mahaweewa in cooperation with the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC)
This ‘youngest’ project for us with permanent ‘Rosenkinder’ support has presented us with a variety of tasks this year. Melanie’s work on site and our visit this year revealed staff shortages in the care of the children and insufficiently clarified responsibilities. This needed to be clarified and helped. For example, we launched additional financial support for the matrons. This enabled us to recruit additional staff so that 6 of the 7 necessary childcare positions are currently already filled. This is a considerable improvement in the care of the 60 or so children in the boarding school who are in great need of help. We have, of course, continued to support the 4 interns who are currently not paid by the state for school lessons. All in all, the situation is now fairly orderly. This was also necessary because two young ladies contacted us during the course of this year who were very keen to do some social service for the Rosenkinder children in a distant place after completing a period of their lives. This has now been successfully completed and the two of them are happy to report here today on their work and impressions for our members and supporters:
„Hello everyone, here you will find our report of our 3 weeks last October in Mahaweewa:
We are Carlotta and Insa, 18 and 25 years old, and both come from Schleswig-Holstein. While Carlotta has just finished her A-levels, is about to start her teaching degree and is planning a trip through Asia as well as supporting the Rosenkinder, Insa has finished her Master’s degree. She wants to gain charitable experience and then get to know Asia better.
As soon as we arrived at the Siviraja Special School in Mahaweewa, we received a warm welcome. The sometimes curious, sometimes shy looks on the children’s faces made us look forward to the coming weeks. We soon realised that the standard of living in Sri Lanka is very different from that in Germany and that we had to be prepared for some challenges. We discovered a huge spider, sleep on small, old beds, have windows without glass, just a grille and a wooden door, and showering is only possible with cold water. However, we got used to all this over time and by the second week we even found the spider less annoying. Our room is next to the girls’ dormitories, so in theory we are surrounded by them from morning to night. This meant that we often painted with them or tried to communicate with them using a dictionary, which gave us an even deeper insight into their lives.
At the children’s home, they eat three meals a day, which is very spicy curry with rice. Even though we like to try new and local food, the staff were kind enough to cater to our needs. We were therefore given curry without chilli and our usual muesli and oatmeal in the morning.Our first day at school began on Monday. We had no expectations as everyone had told us to just do what we felt like doing. So we took our time to look round everything and Anuthara was kind enough to show us around all the classes. We were a little disorientated at first as we didn’t quite know what exactly our role would be here or what was expected of us. In the first few days, we therefore sat down in the classes and observed how the teachers taught and what opportunities we had to support them.
Day by day, we got to know the teachers and pupils a little better and began to develop ideas on how we could organise the lessons and help the children. The insights into the classes for deaf and blind children were particularly impressive. However, our main focus was on the hyperactive children and those with learning difficulties. We tried out different approaches to find out what helped the children the most and what we enjoyed ourselves.
We noticed a lack of exercise during school hours, even though some children desperately needed it. We therefore decided to take individual children or small groups of up to three pupils out of class to challenge them physically in the activity room. This went down well with most of the children.In Year 5, we also tried to teach the children some English. This proved to be quite challenging as many of the basic skills were lacking and the level of the pupils varied greatly. While some already spoke English quite well, others still had difficulties counting to three after half an hour of practising. We often overcame the language barrier with the help of pictures, gestures and facial expressions.
Painting and crafting with the children was also very popular, encouraging their creativity and having a lot of fun together. Our day was not over even after the school bell rang at 1:30 p.m. In the afternoon, when the weather permitted, we played volleyball and cricket with the children. They were always very happy when we approached them with the ball in our hand. We spent time on the playground with the younger children. It was particularly impressive how all the children were included – no one was left out. The older and stronger children helped the younger and weaker ones, and we were also warmly integrated from the start. It was wonderful to see how the children acted together almost like a big family.”
The two have been touring further through South/East Asia since then. For us it was an experiment, well prepared, but still a challenge. A change of location, a completely different culture, special needs when dealing with the children in Mahaweewa and, for example, The conditions were terrible, especially in the autumn monsoon. Insa and Carlotta mastered it brilliantly and for us it was also a valuable experience for further inquiries about a “Rosenkinder” internship.
4. Current project “Rosenkinder Hostel” at the Vocational Training Center in Panadura in cooperation with the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC)
Our Rosenkinder Hostel in combination with the state Vocational Training Center has been in existence since 2014. It is simply a great facility for girls from children’s homes to start their “free” life after their time in the home with a qualified and internationally recognized training. ACBC then arranges a safe and tested start into the professional world for us. This is a huge help, especially for girls in the home who usually have no or very difficult family circumstances. By the end of this year, we will have helped almost 250 girls to get a better start in an independent life. In this respect, we never understood why it was not possible for a long time to support girls from our children’s home in Balapitiya despite our many efforts in the Rosenkinder Hostel in Panadura. But this year Shehara and Amasha have made a start. Sehara has now moved from the Rosenkinder Hostel to the hostel of a textile factory and is doing a paid internship there – employment guaranteed. Amasha has also already completed her “Beauty Culture” training and is waiting for an internship. Both have just advertised training at the Rosenkinder Hostel in Balapitiya – see the pleasing result under 2. above!
5. „planned“ Project „Rosenkinder Hostel 2“ at the Boy Children Home in Payagala together with the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC)
Unfortunately, the work that had started well in Payagala has not yet begun. But now there is a new president in Sri Lanka and soon a functioning parliament will be back in place. We will probably continue to need the army’s craftsmen so that the concept of “we pay for the material – the army does the work” can be continued at the hostel and also at the new state training center. Since the state still has no money for this even with the new government and parliament, we and our helpers at ACBC will continue to pursue this option. Hopefully we will see a breakthrough on our next visit to the site at the latest.
6. Sonstiges
Now back to NOT RELATED MEETS SURASANKA in Uetersen last Saturday. Everyone who was there experienced a wonderful, atmospheric evening. The western music played by the local band met drum rhythms and dance movements that were thousands of years old. The audience in the Uetersen town hall, which was filled to the last seat, was very interested and was completely enthusiastic at the end. The donated food and drinks rounded off the impression, so that in the end we were able to count donations of almost 1,800 EURO. The money will go to the dance school in Amunagama, which we have been supporting since 2010. We have already donated a wooden floor and a new roof for the around 120 dance children there – our members will certainly remember this. Now the plan is to expand it to include drum training. We are there and what could be better than promoting culture with culture and offering the children a wonderful change of pace outside of school. The unique ancient culture in Sri Lanka is part of everyday life there and must be preserved.
That’s it for today. Stay healthy and happy through the late autumn and into what we hope will be a peaceful Christmas. If you would like to make a Christmas donation, the “Rosenkinder” guarantee almost 100 percent of your money will go to our very valuable main projects. See our bank details below.
Your
Dieter Kaske
