Welcome to the Hindu Council of Sri Lanka
The Hindu Council of Sri Lanka (HCSL), from its inception twenty five years ago, has been involved not only in religious activities but also in social and welfare services. In recent times the Council has been paying more attention to serve the internally displaced people(IDP) of the North during and after the war. During this period from January 2009 up to now we have visited IDP camps in the Vavuniya District several times donating food, clothing, drinking water, dry rations and other essentials together with filters for drinking water to the Vavuniya and Killinochchi Hospitals, a washing machine to the Chettikulam Hospital to the value of over Rs.6.5m. We also visited Lady Ridgeway Hospital a couple of times in the early days of the war, when injured children were brought here providing clothing, milk food, toys and other basic necessities.
In continuing our services, we decided to conduct a Medical Camp for the resettled at Akkarayan in the Killinochchi District. This Camp was conducted in association with a team of doctors, nurses and para medics on 6th June 2010.
Projects in the Pipe line
1) An integrated health, nutrition, sanitation and educational project for 1600 school children in Mullivalai and Kulamunai Maha Vidyalaya in Mullaitivu.
This project aims to provide inputs for the displaced children of the above two schools that will enhance their basic educational and health requirements. The Hindu Council of Sri Lanka, Colombo with its peripheral unit in Mullaitivu will be responsible in collaboration with the officials of the Education & Health departments, the Principals, Teachers and well-wishers to implement the proposed activities.
2) Women’s Project in Kilinochchi – essentially war widows. Our plan is to work closely with these women, teach them about management of money and loans, building their skills, helping each one to work on an income generating activityty suitable to her capabilities. The Council hopes to empower the widows to become self-sufficient.
The women especially the war widows amongst the displaced people are the most affected. Merely giving them handouts is very temporary. We need to rehabilitate them by training and equipping them for income-generating activities. This would equip them for an activity which would bring an income.
For this we need to employ a trainer on a monthly basis paying him/her a salary of at least Rs20,000. This person would be sent to different areas in the Vanni and in the eastern province and work with the women in our peripheral units, form them into self-help groups, train them in micro finance, entrepreneurship and help them to be on their own. We would help them to get involved in some income generation activity, help the women to get loans from the Bank.
The goal of this project is to increase economic opportunities for women badly affected by the war. Since women play a crucial role in caring for and stabilizing their families, focusing on livelihood development will positively impact on the families.
We would be grateful if you could kindly help us with funds.