Shippers’ Academy’s “Shoes 4 Education” for the underprivileged
View(s):The Shippers’ Academy Colombo (SAC) has launched a Facebook campaign with the participation of Internet users to support extremely poor school children to own a pair of shoes to attend school.
A large number of rural area schools have students who don’t have proper school attire to attend classes including a pair of shoes. Government gives them uniforms annually, the SAC said last week.
CEO of Shippers’ Academy Colombo Rohan Masakorala said that this is small gesture and initiative by the Academy to make small children happy with a smile and to uplift the confidence/morale of our rural poor children and to encourage them to go to school.
“It all started with a small Facebook post I placed during December Christmas season that caught the attention of many. People started writing to me to get it organised so that they would support, so I had to come with a transparent and an acceptable mechanism to do this, so that right and deserving children got the shoes. It is complicated as size and gender differs as well as locations. Now we have sorted out the mechanism to distribute the best possible way. I approached Sri Lanka Army Wanni HQ for facilitation, Major General Kumudu Perera, my brother in law. The army is already helping my sister through the Hemas Outreach Programme where she is doing enormous amount of work building and developing preschools in very poor areas. I requested the army to list out initially about 25 schools in different divisions. We have now got 26 schools, needing 780 pairs of shoes, some schools just requesting one pair. Schools will be selected islandwide depending on the need,” Mr. Masakorala said in the appeal.
The Academy approached DSI group who is supporting it with vouchers and a discount to obtain vouchers. “We have already collected over Rs 400,000 worth of vouchers which will be around 325 pairs of shoes where we will start distributing next week onwards with the support of the Army,” he said.
Large number of company executives and Sri Lankans living overseas too joined the campaign. “It was heartening to see some who could not afford to contribute came forward to support even in a small way to kick this project first phase off the ground last December. I am very grateful to all of them.”
He said: “We need another 440 pairs to fulfil the first list, information will be on the Facebook and the Shippers’ Academy website soon. NDB Bank has facilitated us with a special project account to collect funds, etc indeed it has come out as a good project and a satisfying opportunity to me too as a person who left the corporate world to educate others in the field that I know. Anyone interested can go to Face book page “Shoes 4 Education” and contact us or send a mail to ceo@shippersacademy.lk to support and contribute.”