ISSN: 1391 - 0531
Sunday March 16, 2008
Vol. 42 - No 42
Mirror  

When wishes come true

By Natasha Fernandopulle

We all wish for one or many things in life but it is not often that those wishes and dreams come true. This may be because of financial restraints or various other reasons. However, there are times that these wishes can come true for a few lucky ones. And in fact, it would be interesting to note that there are a group of young people who are trying to make the wishes of around 100 kids come true.

This group of youth consist of the Interact District 3220, where with their Community Service partner for the year, Amana Takaful Insurance they will be granting wishes of children of disabled or diseased army personnel, through the project, Give To Those Who Gave. The kids whose wishes will be granted will be 12-years-old and below.

This project is one among many community service projects the Interact District 3220 are doing at the moment. They will be following four main guidelines – education, extra-curricular activities, co-curricular activities and medicine. As to why they will be sticking to these guidelines, Manuk Gunawardena, the Project Chairperson said, "we have to be realistic with what we can do." As not having these guidelines will result in the area being too broad to cover.

At the beginning of the year when this group of youth were installed as the Interact District 3220, they wanted to make their main community service project, one which would help children of army personnel. In terms of permission they did not have a problem at all. "They were quite happy that we were doing this for them," said Manuk, as not many people do such projects.

The Interact District has budgeted two millions rupees and will be collecting the finances necessary for the project within the course of two and a half months. They plan to meet the kids between the last week of March and the beginning of April for them to find out the exact wishes. And they plan to end the project, Manuk said, towards the end of May.

In terms of funds, their main form of funding will be through certificates priced at Rs.2000, 1000, 500 and 200, and they will be sold to the public from March 22. This aside there will be a tick card, till and ribbon campaign.

The ribbon campaign will be done through the Interact Clubs of the schools where each ribbon will be sold at Rs.5, and the tick card and till campaigns will be at public places. So the certificates aside, the rest are all currently active. "we are still in the beginning stages – financially," Manuk and Sajjaad Ramzey also the Project Chairperson as well as the Head of the Finance Committee, said adding "and in about a week's time, the finance part will start moving rapidly."

They also hope to reach out to the Sri Lankan community living outside the island. And to do so they will be making a digital certificate, with all the necessary authorization and will also be looking at receiving donations.

Sponsors and partners for the project have been approached and are still pending, Manuk and Sajjaad said. They went on to state that what they expect from the sponsors are funds and the partners they hope will give them the necessary goods to grant the wishes to these children.

The kids will be brought to Colombo, where during the course of the day they will be given the chance to talk to the Interactors thus allowing the Interactors to know what their wishes are. And as soon as the funding comes through, the wishes will be underway! Manuk and Sajjaad also went on to state, "we will most probably go to them and grant the wishes."

There are 25 members in the committee for this project where the main organisers are Interact District 3220 but members of the various Interact Clubs are also very much a part of this worthwhile project. The main committee members also consist of Dvanika Wanigasekara, Project Secretary and Head of Publicity and Binu Wickramasinghe, Head of the Wishes Committee.

Depending on the funds they receive they would like to grant wishes to a maximum of around 150 children and this will be an island wide project therefore not restricted to a particular area in the country. So they request the support of the public to help them to make the wishes of these deserving kids come true.

If you would like to help them, for further details on the project you can contact them over email on gtwg3220@gmail.com or call Manuk on 0714 034 888 or Sajjaad on 0772 196 593.

 
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