This is my first official blog entry as an Emerge programs volunteer and I’d like to introduce myself. I am a Sri Lankan who grew up in Nigeria and currently a doctoral student at MIT, taking a semester off from school this fall and spending it in my beautiful island home. I am a biological engineer interested in vaccines, public health, public policy, and probably just about everything else under the sun (albeit to different degrees). But most of all, I am very very human. Over the past

As of this May, I was only just beginning to learn about Emerge. Now, it’s September and I’m completely immersed in all things Emerge related. The last two months have been absolutely frenetic. Emerge Lanka has become an official entity. We’ve identified and started to narrow down a list of potential expansion sites. One fantastic short term volunteer has come and gone while Jennifer, Prabhani, and I have arrived and taken over. Meanwhile, I’ve begun to get to know and love the girls at the

It has been always the girls wish to see us all in sari, ever since Ellen and April wore sari for the Sinhala/Tamil New year celebrations, the girls wanted me to wear sari. We had an excuse, it was Alia and Ellen’s going away party last week, Ellen was going back home to take up position as US Director and Alia on her way to England to continue with her studies after a short visit. We also had volunteer Prabhani who was visiting us to

My name is Jennifer and I am the new Program Development Director for Emerge Lanka. I just arrived four weeks ago and I’m still learning a lot about Sri Lanka and our girls, but I’m really excited to be here. First things first, a little background. I grew up in the midwest, I have a degree in Anthropology from Arizona State, and a little yappy dog back home. I spent the past couple of years with a non-profit organization called FAIR Fund, which works to

Alia miss known to be one of the girl’s favourites is as you all know is the founder of Emerge Global. When she visits Sri Lanka we keep her arrival a top secret as we want to surprise the girls. But this time we informed the girls she was coming, so they waited in excited anticipation. On Monday the 13th it was the usual beading class day and when we arrived the girls wore the special dresses made themselves for her arrival, they had also put up