17 March 2022 03:06 am Views - 380
Humans for Humanity
A group of exemplary youth in Ragama has come together to reach out and help their community. Humans for Humanity is a collective of youth based in Ragama. Their members consisting of university students and young professionals have come together to identify the needy among their own community and to help them in whatever way they can, with the help of their own.
In 2018 December, a group of friends got together to help a small family in Ragama.
“One 13-year-old child of this family was to undergo brain surgery. So we thought we should help them. An overnight collection of funds saw Rs. 16,000 was collected for this family. We realised that if we took more time to organise, we could have a better collection to help this family. So that was really the first step,” one member of the organisation explained.
At that time the initial group of Humans for Humanity was 13 members strong. In the same year, dry rations were distributed around the time of Christmas, to ten low-income families.
“At that time the organisers or the members of the group were the same original members, but we had more donors for this project,” they said.
With more and more support being given to this group, they started regular social media updates documenting their work on the Humans for Humanity Facebook page. Soon they selected a school in Anuradhapura, where 110 children were given their entire school supplies required for the academic year. “ this was our first major project. We also gave sports equipment and books for the library. We had an approximate collection of about LKR 200,000 for this project,” one member said.
“Before every donation, when we select a school or families, we do some investigations. Since we are responsible for these funds collected, we need to make sure that the recipients are genuine cases,” he added. “Our goal is not to highlight ourselves. None of our team members publish our photographs on social media. That is not our goal. At the same time, we make sure that the recipients’ privacy and dignity are also respected. So we blur their faces when we publish photographs. Our social media pages are maintained in the interest of transparency. I think that is one of the main reasons why we have a lot of supporters and well-wishers with us,” the members said.
Before distributions, the group purchases rations and other equipment from direct dealers, to make maximum utilisation of funds. It also means that food items purchased in bulk have to be organised in packets. “This is where our members work really hard, as it is purely voluntarily. Sometimes for us to really identify the requirements of each household, the members, especially the female members of the group have spoken to families at length, to identify their needs and support them as best possible,” another member explained.
Local stars such as Sachini Nipunsala, Theekshana Anuradha, Dumal Warnakulasuriya have helped with the creation of videos to help them spread the message, about the joy of giving.
“Our goal is to encourage youth in every corner of the country to create groups like ours, in their own area. If every village or town can have a group of youth to help their own, we imagine that our country would be a kinder and better place,” they said.