EDITORIAL - The Child’s name is tomorrow

n this decadent self-centred world of crime and corruption, one of the vilest offences is the growing trend of child abuse. For instance, in Britain last week, special Police teams arrested more than 600 people, including medical doctors and teachers, on charges of child abuse. Media reports also said there were millions of child abuse pornography sites on the internet, and millions of people were watching them though they know that paedophiles deserve to be thrown into the deepest ocean with millstones tied round their necks.

Amid all these dark, depressing and disgusting reports of the lives of innocent children being permanently damaged by vulgar vultures, there are also rays of hope because of the virtuous and wonderful work being done by various movements. They do not seek publicity and unfortunately they are not given much publicity either because what gets much or too much time and space in the media is the treble S of sex, sensation and scandal.

In Sri Lanka one such movement helping children with special needs is the Shivan Foundation which celebrated its first anniversary yesterday. This foundation for disabled children, a registered charity, was set up by Sri Lankan-born entrepreneur Ganeswaran Velautham. Taking inspiration from his son Shivan, who is autistic, blind and suffers from cerebral palsy, Mr. Velautham has set out to help disabled children and provide the necessary support for their parents through the creation of special needs education, care and rehabilitation centres throughout Sri Lanka. Priority for paid staff positions with full training is given to parents and disabled adults. Each school is run by self-governing parents’ committees. Various awareness programmes are being put in place to help eradicate the social stigma associated with physical and mental disabilities.




Ganesh Velautham is an active entrepreneur in the British real estate sector. Through his and his wife’s experience in raising their disabled son Shivan, he understands the financial and everyday life challenges of raising a disabled child. As a result he has dedicated his time and resources in helping disabled children and providing the necessary support for parents through the creation of child-support facilities in Sri   Lanka. The movement is self-funding and is not reliant on third-party donations.

The non-profit foundation was set up in 2008 to oversee the setting up and management of free education and health centres for disabled children and their parents. The move was made because Mr. Valautham saw an acute lack of support for Sri Lanka families with disabled children due to the stigmatisation of people with disabilities. They are often believed to have done something wrong in a previous life.

The special needs school in Teldeniya was the first centre of its kind to be built by the foundation after years of planning. The centre, which was officially inaugurated on July 20th  2013, is set on 10 acres of rural land surrounded by a breathtaking 3000 ft. hill range and located several miles outside Kandy city. The centre’s 15000 sq. ft. core building houses several health, educational and leisure facilities such as a swimming pool, accommodation suites, music therapy room, Ayurveda centre and herbal massage room. Completing the site are several acres of organic farm land and free-range animal enclosures providing children with the opportunity to interact with nature, for example through animal feeding and petting. The site at Teldeniya is now the spiritual heart of the foundation and the base model for expansion across the country.

Over the past year, two new centres for disabled children were opened in Kilinochchi and Jaffna. More than 130 disabled children have benefited from specialist care to date. The foundation is pioneering Ayurveda treatment in additional to more traditional physiotherapy to improve and even cure certain disabilities. To date, almost a dozen children no longer have life-impacting disabilities as a result of the treatment. In some cases children previously not able to attend school due to physical or mental disabilities are now being reintroduced into the state school system.

Tea is being planted and commercially harvested throughout the site to finance the operation of the school and to fulfil the objective of financial self-reliance.

Children are the heart of our society and the vital needs for them include food and nutrition, healthcare and spiritual growth. While education systems are being changed with every change of Government or ministers and the Bandus are playing pandu, it is heartening that enlightened individuals and groups are stepping out to produce good children and thereby a better tomorrow because the child’s name is Tomorrow.