The Foundation of Goodness is a holistic rural development model that seeks to bridge the urban-rural divide in Sri Lanka via 10 empowerment divisions across 850+ villages island-wide, and reached over 135,000+ beneficiaries in 2023 alone by way of 20 Empowerment Centres, free of cost.
DIVE FOR GOOD CENTRE 2020
Essential School Packs Campaign 2021
November 18, 2020
Life Skills Workshops 2020
December 3, 2020The Dive For Good Centre, an initiative of the Foundation of Goodness, completes 7 years of being open for business, this week! The Centre has grown into not only an empowerment centre for rural youth, but a champion of ocean conservation and environmental awareness.
Before the 2004 Tsunami, the main livelihood within the Seenigama village was coral mining to make quicklime. Research showed that in areas where corals had been destroyed, the Tsunami waves were much more powerful and destructive. This research led to the banning of coral mining, which resulted in many people losing their means of making an income.
As an attempt to provide gainful employment for local youth and divert them from returning to the destructive practice of coral mining, the Seenigama Diving & Training Centre was born in 2008 to provide professional training and PADI licensing, free of charge, to coastal youth to utilize their skills and find employment in the diving industry. To date, 430 students have graduated from our training centre and 21 aspiring divers are currently enrolled in the course this year!
In 2013, as a venture of sustainable income generation for the Centre and a form of job experience for our graduated divers, the Centre opened to tourists, offering opportunities for snorkeling, wreck-diving, scuba diving and much more! All proceeds from these services go towards supporting a new batch of aspiring divers from the rural locality, creating new opportunities for empowerment.
In addition to that, the Centre also actively carries out beach clean-ups, ocean care dives where divers remove trash from the ocean floor, awareness campaigns and recycling drives. In 2018, the Dive for Good Centre partnered with Tokyo Cement Group and launched a project to restore the Coral Reef in Seenigama! The corals are currently flourishing and slowly yet surely, returning to their original glory.
The Dive For Good Centre was greatly affected by the lack of tourists due the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it has opened once more for domestic, advanced bookings as the seas off the coast of Seenigama become calm!
Come visit the Dive for Good Centre and explore the seas of Seenigama while giving back to the local community.
For more information visit: https://diveforgood.com/
