Murukandy Village Heartbeat Empowerment Centre
Foundation of Goodness’ 9th Village Heartbeat Empowerment (VHE) Centre has now been declared open in Murukandy, situated in the District of Kilinochchi in Northern Sri Lanka.
This is a very proud moment for the Foundation of Goodness, as it marks the 3rd VHE Centre to be established this year. Additionally, all three of these Centres are located in the North- another first for FoG who have gone from building our 1st ever VHE Centre in the northern region to now having three Centres established across the region in Jaffna, Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi all within the course of 2017. The opening of this Centre also brings us one step closer to the goal of establishing a VHE Centre in each of Sri Lanka’s 25 districts.
The Centre was established with the kind sponsorship of OYOB (Own Your Own Block) Property Group in Australia, led by a team of property developers whose real passion is empowering people. On this occasion they achieved that goal by giving back to their motherland, making their mark towards uplifting communities that they still feel a deep rooted connection to.
A big thank you also goes to Spirit of Soccer who offered FoG the use of their office building in Kilinochchi as a space to develop the VHE Centre and add value to the local community.
The opening of the Murukandy VHE Centre was celebrated with great enthusiasm by the local community who were extremely keen to access the new resources made available to them. The VHE Centres are designed to empower local people through the provision of services vital to the community, grouped together in one location at the heart of the village. All programmes conducted by VHEs are free of charge and taught by qualified teachers from within the same region.
The Centre currently has 206 beneficiaries registered to attend the programmes on offer which include the following;
Women’s Enterprise and Empowerment Courses: Beauty culture, Dressmaking
The centres also acts as a meeting place for local women and youth, providing a space where they can interact and create social networks, thereby giving them the opportunity to play a role in developing and shaping their communities through active participation in the social and economic activities.
OYOB Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Aynkaran Sivaratnam along with his wife Sumathy were the chief guests at the opening ceremony of the Centre, having flown down from Australia. Delivering the speech in Tamil, he expressed how happy he was to be a part of the opening ceremony, see the wonderful faces of the people who will benefit from the Centre and have this opportunity to make a difference in their lives.
“Today it’s 200 odd registered students, and I know that in time to come we will have at least 1,000 participants utilizing the facility”, he said.
8th December 2017 |
