Q: Tell us about Kids4SL

A: I am Krish Sivagananathan, a 10 year old student in Grade 5. I came up with an idea to encourage children to participate in raising funds.

The website www.Kids4SL.com was developed with the aim to motivate children to support the Government of
Sri Lanka’s Covid-19 Fund.

The kids first need to decide on a fun activity they can do. Then ask friends and family to sponsor them. Once the activity is completed, they can ask their parents to collect the funds and transfer to Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 Fund.  A picture of their activity and the pledged amount can also be uploaded to the website. The total money collected by the children is recorded by the site.

 

Q: What was your inspiration?

A: I was inspired by 100 year old
Capt. Tom Moore from the U.K., who walked for over 20 days raising money
for the NHS and also 5 year old Henry Edwards who ran 2.6 miles every day for 10 days to raise money. My uncle Nathan in Sri Lanka also walked the length of the country to collect money to build cancer hospitals in the North and South
(Trail Sri Lanka).

That was the first time I participated in a charity event and I also wanted to do something like that. I thought of riding my bicycle 5 km daily for 10 days (50 km in total) to raise money for the COVID-19 Fund and wanted other children to join in. My brother Tashane who is 5 years old has joined me. He daily rides 1 km on his bicycle. The website was created to spread the message amongst other children to start doing an activity to raise money.

 

Q: What type of activities can the children do during curfew?

A: Since all the schools are closed now, kids have free time to do an activity.
It can be anything that they like to do. If the children have a garden, they could do a sports activity such as cycling, running, walking, skipping etc. If the children do not have a garden, they could do something indoors such as reading books, painting, baking, cleaning, playing a board game etc. This can be done as a family too.

 

Q: How do they get sponsorship?

A: The children can tell their parents, relatives, friends, teachers etc., and get the message across to as many people as possible about their activity and get sponsorship. The activity can be completed in one day or a number of days.

Q: What is your target amount?

A: It would be awesome if all the children together could raise one million rupees for the COVID-19 fund.

 

Q: What are your future plans?
A: I have raised Rs 50,000 for my first
10 days of cycling. If I can find more
sponsors after I complete the ten days, then I will continue to ride my bicycle to collect more funds. So far my brother and I have collected Rs. 75,000 and we have a long way to go!

 

Q: How does someone contribute to the fund?

A: After completing an activity, each child can get their parents to transfer the money collected directly to the COVID-19 Healthcare and Social Security Fund
of the Sri Lanka Government, at the
Bank of Ceylon, Corporate Branch, Account Number: 0085737373.
They can transfer online or deposit a cheque directly at any BOC branch.
They can also donate via their mobile phone by dialling #207#.

 

Q: What is your message to the
children?

A: As children, we can also make a difference by doing what we can in a small way.

I am inspired by many children across the world, who have done different things to raise money to support their countries. I hope we can join hands together to help our country to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Man on the Moon