Healing children and youth in Sri Lanka

Introduction

The past couple of weeks have been beyond challenging with the ongoing and increasing economic and political unrest in Sri Lanka, affecting the vulnerable communities we work with the most. Therefore, making it imperative that our services continue to operate despite the struggle. We at Shanthi Maargam have been working hard to ensure that the disadvantaged communities and youth receive our services with minimal disruption.

Following is a summary of the events organised and services provided by Shanthi Maargam over the past three months.

Sinhala and Tamil New Year Celebrations

A series of fun and traditional games including lime and spoon, best laugh, best dressed (Avurudu Kumari and Kumaraya), balloon blowing competition, musical chairs etc was organized for the new year. The girls from the community also devised a beautiful dance routine that they performed for all guests. Traditional New Years treats including Milk Rice, Bananas, Sinhala & Tamil Sweets and Cupcakes were served. The event was graced by District NGO Coordinator, and The Municipal Councillor for Gothamipura. The day ended with lunch and distribution of dry rations to the famillies, a special thanks to our donors Cake Factory, Dainty Limited, and Silver Aisle.

Distributing of Emergency Relief Packs

Packs containing essentials dry rations, hygiene products and basic medicine were donated to 30 families in our community in the month of April in addition to the dry ration packs distributed following the Sinhala and Tamil New Year Celebrations. Similarly 25 packs were distributed in the month of May as well with the funds collected through donations. We hope to continue this every 2 weeks to support them during the economic crisis.

Empowering Girls to Respond to Gender-Based Violence and Facilitating Supportive and Safer Environments in Urban, Low-income settings in Sri Lanka

With the funding of Asia Foundation, Shanthi Maargam works towards strengthening the skills and awareness among female youth on prevention and response to Gender Based Violence. Our activities in April continued with child protection sessions. Participants were engaged to share their own ideas and experiences, as well as building awareness on the helplines and systems available to protect them. Educational Support classes also continued for English and Maths. An Art Competition was organized to engage the children in something fun and motivational. It was a great opportunity for the children to showcase their creativity, 23 children participated. Certificates and prizes were distributed on the 27th of April. An interactive parental skills workshop was also held, whereby parents were encouraged to share their challenges in parenting, the facilitator worked collaboratively with them to find solutions and support. Whilst giving general advice and tips to support parents and their children.

Strengthening the Vulnerable Queer Youth in Sri Lanka through Online Psychosocial support groups and other services

A project was commenced in collaboration with YellowDot in order to provide emotional support groups for LGBTQIA youth through a pre-determined theme group therapy model.      

The support group commenced on the 4th of May. Since the formation of a WhatsApp group, before the sessions began, there has been a significant amount of engagement, interaction, openness and fun! This same dynamic continued and improved during our group sessions on Zoom. Thus far we have covered the introduction to the support group, explored the concepts of Gender Identity and Expression, and Sexual Orientation, factors that influence self-esteem and self-worth, and healthy communication.

The sessions for queer youth continued in June. Here, we addressed the importance of healthy relationships, acknowledged the impact of microaggressions in their lives, brought awareness

to the voice of the inner critic, learned how to challenge negative beliefs, and affirmed the

reliance each one has built during difficult periods of our lives.

As facilitators, we have been encouraged to witness the support, love, and empathy shown by the participants during these sessions. It excites us as we continue to witness the powerful impact that a safe space can have on human beings.

Center Activities

The activities conducted with the children in the center was continued throughout the months from April, however, it has been halted since mid June due to the fuel crisis and the inability for the staff to travel to and back to work.

April continued with varied activities to engage our youth and harness their wellbeing. The Paths to Change programme completed the 2nd construct of social competence and started on the 3rd construct of emotional competence. A movie day showing "Secret Superstar" was also organized for the children. Ms. Chathu Paranawithana conducted two mindfullness sessions enabling children to focus on their attention, breath and other strategies to enhance their emotional wellbeing. We also initiated a dry rations programme with the hopes of distributing

essential packs to families every other week.

A book donation was organized for the neighbouring school - Bandaranayake Vidyalaya. The english books were received by the principal, english teacher and two student representatives. Children and Youth also engaged in a community based child protection mapping exercise, whereby they were able to identify their community and the difficulties they face. Children and Staff also engaged in fun sporting activities.

In the month of May there was a surge in incidents in the country with murders, missing and kidnapped children, we decided to take action and conduct a session on child safety with the children and youth who attend our centre. The session was conducted by our clinical psychologist, Ammarah Ashraf and CEO, Shalini Ratwatte, with one of our largest turnouts of children in the centre in a long time. We are hopeful that this workshop would provide them with insight and knowledge on how to be safe.

Mindfulness sessions continued with Counsellor, Chathuri Paranawithana teaching our youth skills to regulate their emotions and gain a sense of calm during challenging situations, such as the current crisis in Sri Lanka, which continued into June.

English classes were conducted by our volunteer, Tharani Ponnamperuma, and assisted by counsellors, Chathuri, Nathan Anandappa. These classes included learning good manners in English, and parts of the body.

Art therapy sessions were conducted by Chathuri and many children seemed to freely express themselves. It was incredible to watch them create and express themselves so freely. Due to the current economic crisis in the country, and the prices of food being very high, we decided to provide the children with lunch on the days they visited the centre. The children thoroughly enjoyed the food we provided! We would like to thank all our donors who made all of this possible. During these days, the children were also encouraged to exercise the good manners they learned during their English classes!

The extra food was given to the children to take home to their families. Finally, when we did not have planned sessions, the children and youth enjoyed their time playing, reading and spending time in the safe space we provide in our centre.

Provision of Free Counselling Services

During this time in which a dialogue on mental health issues is much needed, the services offered by Shanthi Maargam in uplifting the mental health of children and youth. Our 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.

The counseling team had to manage 557 hotline calls, 209 tele-counselling sessions through hotline, 162 of 1-on-1 online counseling sessions and 40 new clients from April, 2022 to June, 2022.

Employee Development

Every month, training continued with bi-monthly supervision, peer supervision for the counselling team, and hotline training and weekly supervision for hotline counsellors.

Three members of our staff attended a 3- day workshop conducted by the Helvetas project, which was on the topic of “Safe spaces for youth supporting emotional well-being, holistic learning, and intercultural harmony with the focus on Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE).”

Social Media

Social Media has been one of the key tools that has helped Shanthi Maargam continue its work on raising awareness on mental health and on bridging the gap with young people. Every month we focus on raising awareness on different topics through posts and videos.

This April, we focused on World Autism Day, Sinhala & Tamil new year, Easter, Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention month, Child Abuse Prevention Day and Self-Care Saturday. We also initiated a funding campaign for essential dry ration packs.

In May we focused on the topic of loneliness, for Mental Health Awareness Week, and made posts commemorating Eid, and Vesak. We also created a post condemning the violence used on peaceful protesters. and encouraged people to reach out to us on our hotline for emotional support if needed

In June we celebrated Pride Month and created a series of 6 posts addressing different topics that queer youth might have to deal with.

All posts were created in English,Sinhala &Tamil. For more details please access our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/shanthimaargam/