Family and friends in the US support Emerge Global to spread the Holiday cheer with the girls

Posted by Nirukshi de Lanerolle on Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Just one month ago, we launched our Bead Program at Panadura. With Christmas around the corner, it was an overwhelming but exciting task to plan for two holiday parties, not one as usual. My nephews and nieces recently visited Sri Lanka from the US and, after many years I had finally met them and was able to share with them the work I do at Emerge. They promised me that they would collect as many funds as possible for the holiday parties scheduled for the 21^strd of December. Chari, my nephew co-ordinated the whole project, based off of my budget and deadlines. After many weeks, I was excited when he informed me that, thanks to many generous contributions, he had reached the goals we had set and I could go ahead and plan the parties!

In coordinating the parties, I wanted to help as many people as possible. I carefully selected the suppliers we purchased gifts from, choosing suppliers and seamstresses who were underprivileged and could use the holiday order. We had a shirt and skirt made for every girl and we also purchased each girl two new pairs of underwear. By doing this, I was also able to save some money from the donations received to use to purchase supplies for the bead workshops and vitamins for the girls for the future. Items that I could not get from the suppliers who needed support, such as drinks and gifts for the games, were purchased from very crowded stores, bustling with holiday activity. I had to wade through the crowds during the height of the festivities; the holiday season is not the same, however, if there isn't all the stress involved.

On the 21^st we had our party at Ma-Sevana and I had Prabhani, a Sri Lankan volunteer who has been studying in the U.S., and her sister organize the games for the kids. Jen, and Rohini (Ma-Sevana’s bakery teacher and one of the girls’ favourites) supported me during the celebrations. From the balloon games, to Statue and Baila dancing, to musical chairs and the musical hat game, the festivities went on with the girls having such a wonderful time.

We served a tasty fried rice meal with the traditional Papadams to go with it and dessert was ice creams cones (there was one girl who mentioned to us later that she had seven scoops! I guess they enjoyed the ice cream). The last event for the day was lighting of sparklers and the girls just enjoyed it very much. I was so glad I was able to give them the opportunity… one of the teens mentioned that she had not lit sparklers since she was a child and I was glad that I surprised them with it.

The girls danced their cares away until after four that evening and they did not want us to leave; I was so glad that they enjoyed themselves so much.

On the 23^rd the Panadura girls had planned something different. They entertained us with an array of beautiful Sinhala Christmas carols, which was a pleasant surprise. Thereafter many games were played. All of their favourite was the balloon game where they had to pop as many balloons as possible, and find as many gifts inside of them to receive the special prize.

Unfortunately, I encountered a problem with my camera and I was sad that the most important photos were not captured. We had an former Bead Program participant who attended and the party and distributed gifts to the girls in Panadura. This made her very proud.

One of the teachers gave us a special thank you speech for appreciating them and the work they do by rewarding them with gifts. Generally, the teachers are often unnoticed when others visit or share gifts with the girls. This made my day and all the hard work put in to make both holiday parties wonderful and a memorable worth it.

I cannot thank all of the donors who contributed towards this holiday enough. You made this year very special for every single girl we work with and provided some much-needed support to the staff who support these girls as well. Thank you for making both events so beautiful and memorable.

Nirukshi

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Suba Natalak!

Posted by jennifer on Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Where do I begin???

This month has been incredibly eventful for the Emerge Lanka Foundation. So many of our big plans are finally in action and it's been overwhelming and very rewarding.

The most obvious event of the month was moving Emerge Headquarters. It's a bit of a saga, so I'll skip to the end and just say that we ended up in a place that is great for us. It gives us room to grow if we need it, a good location for getting our work done, and came at a good price. The best part of course is that the moving process is over!

One of the most quietly awesome events this month was the arrival in my inbox of a very important email from Prabhani. She has spent a great deal of time translating surveys that all of our girls at Panadura took when we started working with them. The surveys cover their lives, their hopes and their skills and it will be immensely useful in the months to come as we plan workshops to meet the needs of these specific girls.

We've had some great workshops in the homes. The Ma Sevana girls (and their matrons) learned First Aid and CPR from the Red Cross last week and found it really useful. Though I hope they never have to use the skills, I'm confident that they will now be ready if the time comes.

Emerge had a local sale this month which went really well. The American Embassy hosted the sale and we ended up selling almost 300 dollars worth of jewelry. We were really pleased with the turnout and grateful to be invited to participate.

We also had a good week at the homes, but I'll leave that update for Nirukshi!

Take care everyone and Merry Christmas! (Suba Natalak!) Read more »

The Girls at Panadura have an Awesome Salon day

Posted by Nirukshi de Lanerolle on Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Working with the girls at Panadura has been very rewarding to me, they are a bunch of energetic teens who want to learn something new everyday, they are bubbly and very enthusiastic which can be very overwhelming at times.

One evening when I was just about finishing the workshop I announced to them that Nayana, owner of Nayana Salon had agreed to send her staff to teach them beauty tips and have a hair day, they were so excited and happy at the suggestion.

Last Thursday afternoon they were awaiting the visitors’ arrival when three ladies and a guy arrived at the orphanage. Shamali the team leader first spoke to the girls about managing their daily chores, living in unity and the importance of cleanliness. Most of the girls wanted their hair straightened and she informed them that they were too young and they would damage their hair if attempted.

After the advise all the girls who wanted their eye brows shaped got the ladies to do it for them and thereafter the girls who wanted their hair cut short, and trimmed got theirs done. They were so happy and excited.

They got so attached to Shamali and her team that they wanted them to visit them more often to have their hair trimmed. The team happily promised to assist them anytime they wanted.

After all the hard work that was done during the past couple of months, The Emerge team was so glad that we could start implementing our curriculum eventually.

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