Beneficiary Community Aid Projects

The Foundation of Goodness stands apart from many other development organizations because the ultimate outcome we hope to see from our beneficiaries lies beyond material success. For us, it is extremely important that we instill a sense of gratitude and community spirit within our beneficiaries, so that they will always try to pass on the kindness that has been shown to them. The ultimate goal of our work is to create good citizens who can build a caring and altruistic community taking care of each other’s well-being.

To this end, we encourage all of the beneficiaries attending various FoG courses and sports programmes to undertake a community development project. This is a programme that is readily and enthusiastically embraced by the beneficiaries and often, the outcome of their projects far out does any expectation we may have had on the outset.

Some groups of beneficiaries take on projects that are close to their heart and field of interest, such as the Seenigama Diving and Training students who conduct beach cleaning programmes every weekend, collecting up any flotsam and jetsam that floats in from the ocean and clearing away any garbage from the beach before it can be swept in to the sea. This conscientious behavior carries through to their diving as well, because the students are always on the watch out for garbage that litters the ocean floor, or ghost nets that often entangle sea creatures such as turtles and dolphins.

The Children’s Goodness Club recently conducted programmes to ensure the wellbeing of fellow children in the Seenigama area by conducting cleaning programmes at local schools before the start of the new school term. With a severe dengue epidemic sweeping across Sri Lanka, it is vital to ensure that there are no mosquito breeding areas which have been overlooked. Young children are especially susceptible to dengue so it is very important that schools are mosquito free zones.

The CGC visited Rathnasara Vidyalaya and Mawadawila Maliyadeva Secondary School as part of their dengue prevention cleaning programme, cleaning the school premises, removing all garbage and ensuring there were no places where water would collect, allowing for the mosquitoes to breed.

Meanwhile beneficiaries from other FoG sectors have conducted their community work in areas they do not usually cross paths with, broadening their experience of their own community. The staff from the Seenigama and ArtBanc BPOs visited the Baranasooriya Children’s Orphanage in Hikkaduwa and spent the day cleaning the premises and playing cricket with the kids. They enjoyed breakfast and tea with the kids and presented them with books, toys and cricket equipment before their departure.

In one of the most monumental projects undertaken by the beneficiaries of any sector, the staff and beneficiaries of the Sports Academy identified a very poor family in the village who lived in a semi constructed house and decided to renovate it. They collected all the money for this project amongst themselves and made sure to complete construction of the walls, rooms and roof and even painted the house. The perfect little home they handed over could barely be recognized as the half built plastic covered structure full of gaping holes that the family used to live in.

All of these projects big and small work collectively towards making Seenigama and its surrounding villages a wonderful place to live in, where the community actively looks out for each other.

17th September 2014