Thanks for taking the time to visit my “Just Giving” page, here's some background on how I'm attempting to improve the lives of some of the poorest children in Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan educational system is based on the traditional UK model, with six years of primary school learning, leading to a national secondary entrance exam. 

Nursery teaching has, unfortunately, been left to its own devices, and is run privately with little guidance. Teachers are often without qualifications, and untrained. This has led to many pre-schools being little more than child-minding establishments with no real positive learning for the children.

I've wanted to help improve the prospects of young children living in aftermath of civil war. The economy of the poorer states are such that it is difficult for young children to obtain even a basic pre-school education.

Also, many areas have poor employment opportunities, and pre-school teachers usually have no training with little chance for individuals to learn new skills. Unemployment in general is extremely high in some of these poorer regions, making Spain look like an economic hotspot in comparison.

I wanted to attempt to address the issues above in a sustainable way by coming up with a business plan that will create training opportunities for locals in carpentry and sewing that would directly benefit the nursery schools by providing them with Montessori toys, and also basic maintenance of the school facilities. These carpenters would also sell the surplus toys through the True Volunteer Foundation (TVF) website, with all proceeds being put back into the schools to provide further training and resources.

The money donated through this link by you, will go directly to training pre-school teachers in more effective Montessori education, and provide basic Montessori learning aids to 15 pre-schools and over 400 children. This will sow the seed for the larger project to take place, which is funded separately by corporate and celebrity donors to TVF.

In my voluntary role as Country Manager for Sri Lanka I will be spending nearly two weeks in Sri Lanka from the 3rd March to 16th March in order to kick start this project. I will also be checking on the progress of some ongoing TVF building projects in other parts of the country. 

I should add that all volunteers (myself included) do not claim a single penny of expenses from TVF. Every penny donated to them goes directly to charitable causes. More details of how they operate can be seen from their website. All of their projects are tightly managed via qualified project management professionals who are also TVF volunteers that give up their time on a regular basis.

Any donations provided to TVF through this page will help improve the prospects of hundreds of children, not just in the short term, but for the foreseeable future. 

For Euroclear employees who donate, your donation will be generously matched by Euroclear.

So please dig deep and donate now.

You will be able to check on the progress of this project on TVF's website over the course of this year and next.