I had the privilege of being a Shining Life Children's Trust (SLCT) volunteer along with my son, Joseph, this summer and was hosted by the Women's Development Center following a visit at Easter during a holiday in Sri Lanka where I first met Mrs. Stephen. I was so impressed by her and her vision for the poor and disenfranchised children and women in Sri Lanka that on my return to England I applied, through Shining Life Children's Trust, to be a volunteer supporting WDC which was thankfully accepted. As it turned out I was the first volunteer for SLCT and the last at WDC who had the opportunity to spend time with Mrs. Stephen.
Whilst volunteering I worked closely alongside the Community Development Manager, Chandrathilaka, visisting many out-reach projects in schools, creches and training centers in the surrounding areas of Kandy, including Pupurassa, Denmark village, Ulapane and NuwaraEliya.
All of the projects we visited had one main thing in common and that was that the people there were dispossessed in one way or another whether it was through limited education, a disability, lack of nutrition or all too often some form of abuse. However, all appeared happy, were warm, welcoming and incredibly friendly.
It was fantastic to see how well and how gratefully such small items such as pens, pencils, stationary, mini whiteboards, all donations from the UK which Joe had collected beforehand and taken out with us, were received and how so little, by UK standards, goes such a long way to making a difference to people's lives in Sri Lanka. For example, in Kadugannawa Tamil School SLCT had purchased some very simple partitions which were used in the school to separate a very large space to create several smaller sized classrooms. This enabled groups of similar aged children to be taught together in a discrete room with its own character and differentiated for that particular group. Without these partitions it must have been incredibly difficult for teachers to teach and students to learn.
I enjoyed delivering training again after having been out of front-line teaching and training for many years. I thoroughly enjoyed all the planning and preparation and the designing of the training materials and especially the delivery. I could see the difference that up-skilling staff could make to their securing funding the future so they could continue to support the disadvantaged children and their families and the women of Sri Lanka.
Just 2 days before Mrs. Stephen passed away she took us, along with her Grandson Sam and Chandrathilaka with her to NuwaraEliya where she wanted to sign a contract to set up a space to facilitate livelihood training for persons with disabilities along with awareness on nutrition hygiene, and other topics, so they could better support their children and themselves. Mrs. Stephen wanted to take Joe and me as a 'thank you'for our service and to Joe especially for his commitment to gathering items that he brought out for the schools in Sri Lanka. This for me was one of the highlights of our visit as it enabled me to see and hear how Mrs. Stephen put her values and vision into practice. She was so unconcerned with her own levels of discomfort (traveling to NuwaraEliya was about a 5-6 hour round trip much of which was very windy roads and was quite uncomfortable even for us) and interested solely in improving the lives and conditions of others. Joe and I feel extremely privileged to have spent the hours that we did during the couple of weeks that we were able to spend with Mrs. Stephen and were so sad along with all who knew her when she passed away.
I hope that WDC can continue Mrs. Stephen's legacy and can rise to the challenge of continuing to implement her vision.
By Marcia Summers
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