Healing children and youth in Sri Lanka

Introduction

With the outbreak in May of the third wave of COVID-19 pandemic and the Delta variant, the Shanthi Maargam team faced extreme limitations in reaching the target communities. Therefore, the team had to re-imagine our activities to suit to the prevailing situation. The mode of implementation of our work had to change as lockdown and travel restrictions were imposed. For the safety and well-being of the children, adolescents, youth, and the team, we decided to work digitally and created alternative methods of communication for maintaining our relationship with target communities. Accordingly, the community outreach coordinator created a WhatsApp group with around 20 children and youth. This group is used as a basic communication means and disseminates information on themes such as mental health, sexual education, sexual and reproductive health, psycho-social wellbeing etc. through mini flyers, posters, and leaflets in two languages.

Stay Home-Celebrate Vesak 2021

Since the country has gone through a series of lockdowns and curfew situations, people have been restricted to their domestic spaces during their religious and other festivals. Vesak is a holiday and a festival that is traditionally observed by Buddhists and Hindus in South Asia and South-East Asia. The festival commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Lord Buddha. To celebrate, people make Vesak lanterns and many other creations. Children and youth are usually very involved in these activities, especially in underserved and low income communities. During national events and celebrations like Tamil and Sinhala New Year and Vesak, children and youth are not able to celebrate these physically as previous. As an organization that works for the psychosocial well-being of children and youth, we created spaces for them to be active and creative. We conducted a digital Vesak celebration with the children and youth of Gothamipura community in Borrella. 20 children and youth actively participated in this digital event and they shared the videos and the photographs of making Vesak creations and the final creations. The images of the creations were uploaded to the Facebook page of Shanthi Maargam and the public were invited to select best creations via Likes and comments on the images. We selected the best three creations based on these likes and comments. Children and youth were very enthusiastic to share their creations and they could share their creativity with us in this critical situation. This was not only a competition for them but also a valuable space for them to express themselves. Also children and youth got the opportunity to release their stress through the creations as they are blocked in their homes.

Dry ration distribution for children and youth in Gothamipura

With the funding support of GlobalGiving, Shanthi Maargam was able to distribute 18 packs of much needed dry rations which contained rice, dhal, milk powder, salt, chili powder, sugar, potato, onion, cooking oil, wheat flour, sprats, coconut, chickpeas, and tea powder to the children and youth in Gothamipura community, Borella. In collaboration with the Grama Niladhari's (the public officials of Sri Lanka appointed by the central government to carry out administrative duties in a Grama Niladhari division, Sri Lanka) office in Gothamipura, we distributed dry rations following the health guidelines of the government. The people in low income settlements like Gothamipura are in a highly demand for food in this difficult time as the earners of families are not possible to get income as they did. Therefore, this dry ration pack was relief for their families for a certain time.

Work with young female leaders to eliminate violence against girls and women

We initiated some activities with the target groups to eliminate violence against girls and women. A communication mean has been created with them and the main target group is young girls and we focused on their well-being. This is a digital platform where the young female leaders and girls can share their daily experience as well as their thoughts under secure and confidential conditions. There are about 27 participants in the group.

Sharing knowledge and information to prevent violence against girls

The project coordinator of Shanthi Maargam shares the knowledge and information on Gender Based Violence (GBV), psycho-social wellbeing, child protection, violence against girls and women, women empowerment, counseling etc. The online trainings will be starting soon.

Free counseling service

The hotline is open 8.00 AM to 10.00 PM every day. We offer first aid and psychological counseling over the phone and one on one counseling sessions (currently conducted online due to prevailing situation) in Sinhala, Tamil and English. According to the Chief of the Counseling team, in this difficult time in the country, the stress caused by isolation due to the lockdown, resurfaced trauma caused by childhood abuse and suicidal ideation are the primary areas that the team has had to deal with. The counseling team could manage 291hotline calls, 46 tele-counselling sessions through hotline, 138 of 1-on-1 online counseling sessions, 24 new clients in May and June.