Diri Divi Prasadinee program three years on:

Safer environment for vulnerable children

by Ranil Wijayapala

In Sri Lanka, we often talk about children being abused and subjected to violence in society due to various reasons and discuss those issues in various platforms to find out as to why these children become vulnerable to violence or abuse.

Though we discuss this serious issue time and again we see little action being taken to prevent these situations resulting in the continuity of such incidents as before.

There are many reasons for children to be subjected to violence or abuse. Some of these issues can be easily addressed if society pays due attention to the issues.

Sometimes children are subjected to violence if they are left out of school education for the mere reason of their families not having enough income to send them to schools.

Under such circumstances there is a likelihood of them drifting to illegal ways of earning money for their daily needs. This is how some of these children end up as child prostitutes, drug traffickers, domestic servants and face violence and sexual abuse.

Economic reasons

As a country blessed with generous people, we can overcome this situation easily if we assist those families and children with our generosity enabling them to overcome these issues.

To address the issue of children vulnerable to abuse and violence, the Probation and Child Care Services Department conducted a survey in 2011.

According to the Department of the Probation and Childcare Services through the survey conducted islandwide, the Department has identified around 40,000 students who were at risk of dropping out from school and 37,332 students face this risk due to economic reasons.

To assist these children, the Department provided uniforms, exercise books and other equipment to continue their education while providing scholarships for the students with the assistance from donors and philanthropists.

The Ministry of Child Development and Women Affairs conducted this program to assist such children and their families at district and Divisional Secretariat level and strict follow up program will be conducted to see the progress of these children.

The Probation and Child Care Services Department selected 500 such children from the Kandy district and provided assistance for them and their families to pursue their education and to improve their income level.

Self-employment

As a part of this program the Probation and Childcare Services Department provided scholarship worth Rs. 250 per month for the students and Rs.10,000 for their families to start a self-employment projects to improve their income level.

After conducting this program for nearly three years since 2011 the Probation and Childcare Services Department reviewed the progress of the program and rewarded the students who had gained better results through these programs.

Not only the students but also 57 parents and guardians who had shown progress in their self-employment projects by investing the funds they received from the Ministry properly for the progress of their children and families.

According to Child Development and Women Affairs Ministry sources, the Probation and Childcare Services Department monitored the examination results of the students, their health situation, their personality improvement, and leadership qualities and the progress of the self employment projects of the parents and guardian of these students when selecting 57 of them to be felicitated under Diri Divi Prasadinee ceremony.

The ceremony was held in Kandy under the patronage of the Child Development and Women Affairs Minister Tissa Karaliyadda and with the participation of Central Province Governor Tikiri Kobbekaduwa, Chief Minister Sarath Ekanayake and Health Minister Bandula Yalegama.

Minister Tissa Karaliyadda commended the officers for continuing the program successfully after strictly following up the progress to safeguard the children form their vulnerable situations and creating a safer environment for them.

He said that programs of this nature would help further improve the education of the children.