Community Psycho-Social Unit

The Foundation of Goodness’ ‘Rebuilding Lives Project’ consists of a committed and experienced team with special training who provided essential care for a region devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. With time, the role they played within this region grew to encompass a broad variation of counselling and psychosocial support. It is only natural that the team also evolved along with the service it provided. To reflect this metamorphosis, they have now been renamed as the ‘Community Psycho-social Unit’, providing services for up to 700 people every year.

While the train receives ongoing training and support from Dr.’s Shanthikumar and Malkanthi Hettiarachchi, in February 2014 they participated in a special workshop conducted by Dr.’s Jenny and Verity from Samutthana (the King’s College London Resource Centre for Trauma, Displacement and Mental Health). Dr. Kaanan Bhavsar (also recommended by Samutthana) monitored the mental health services closely and evaluated for continuous future training for the benefit of the team and its beneficiaries. All these training workshops are made possible with thanks to Dushy Prakrama the Executive Director of Samutthana.

Every month, the CPU team conducts a variety of programmes to ensure the mental wellbeing of the community including special targeted workshops with the very young and elderly community members.

Working closely with the local elders’ homes, the team visits on a monthly basis to discuss their wellbeing, introduce special exercises and healthy eating guides. This year, they visited the Wellawatta Elders’ Home and Balapitiya Elders’ Home to talk to them about managing anger and other emotions as well as about nutrition. They also engaged in religious activities with the elders including a visit to the Galduwa Aranya Senasana Monastry in addition to conducting ‘Shramadhana’ or volunteer clean-up operations.

Some essential educational workshops were conducted for the Children’s Goodness Club members to raise awareness about the proper use of social and communication media and the risks of misuse. With access to mobile phones, Facebook and a plethora of other online applications children entering these spaces without a good awareness of its dangers and consequences face high risk situations and advise on how to correctly use these services while protecting your own privacy is an important lesson for the young generation.

The team also worked with the parents of the Lahiru Pre-school students to talk about the importance of maintaining good relationships between parents and children as well as a workshop for students from the FoG Business Skills courses about self-esteem.

With their new name and expanded community responsibility, the CPU team is charging ahead at full steam delivering vital services to the community every week.

 "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." William James

19th March 2014