Samut Saring Ceylon


Wed 3 Oct 2007

Visiting a Children's Home

It was warm and sunny, seemed like a perfect day to visit the Gokulam Bhaktivedanta Children's Home. Fuzzy and Vibrant Bea eagerly carried the box of books to the van. It was a bit heavy for them but they brought it down the stairs without a problem. We planned it just to be a short stop, drop off the books, say hi to the kids, take some pics and go. We also have a wedding to attend  before lunch so it had to be quick. This was far from the program we are planning for Still Waters Chldren's Home. Here, the children are having a program of their own so we couldn't bother them according to the staff - it was their National Children's Day. The release was timely I hope. We would just want to release the books to their new home and we'd be on our way .

It turned out that the Principal wasn't in yet so even after delivering the box, we still waited. With my 3 kids in tow, Mr. R was very kind to show us around their 3-level school building. The Children' Quarters were off limits =). They have classrooms, a computer room (hey! kids were there clicking away!), the Principal's Office and the Library. The children were everywhere, smiling, briskly walking up and down the stairs and corridors on small bare feet, and greeting us with their melodious "Good Mornings". They were a busy bunch and preparing for the day's events. There were 115 of them ages ranging from 2-15 years old.  We didn't see the youngest ones inthe nursery. Many of these children were orphaned by the war and the tsunami. The Library used to occupy a room on the Ground Floor but the rains caused flooding last year and destroyed many books. It is now located on the Second level of the school building. They have a collection of books mostly in Tamil/Sinhalese and some English books.

I hope that the books we are handing to them will be a modest addition to their Library. Many of these were donated by generous bookcrossers from different countries who responded to our request for books for orphans. We dubbed it as The Children of the Sea Book Project -  a homeschool project which started with our children wanting to share their extra books to other kids who have very little access to English books.

The Principal came and we had a little chat. after acknowledging the gift, they also mentioned their meal sponsorship programs. It is in their website, by the way. Finally, we said our goodbyes and expressed our wish to visit again soon. Oh! They didn't allow us to take photos (as a policy).

To think of a child's life touched by the stories from these books is enough to touch our lives too. My children felt the same.

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Wed 25 Apr 2007

Books for orphans

The two books released in the wild.  0 journal entry. These were Vera and Zeph's books. Being children, it wasn't easy for them to imagine where the books could have gone now. They hope they were picked up by someone who would at least drop a line or two. We just hope they were not tossed in some trash bin or kept unread on a shelf gathering dust.

Previously, we have brought old and new books to a public library, an orphanage, and some were passed on to friends and relatives. My children love to read and they would like to share that experience with other children who have very little access or maybe, none at all, to books or libraries. 

Now, we are thinking of sorting and gathering the children's books in a box and donate them to orphanages here in Sri Lanka. We have thought of that earlier with the books that we no longer need. And with the prospect of returning home next year, it would be quite impossible to bring all of them back to the Philippines. And so, this project was born from that idea.

So now, we are gathering books for these children and for libraries affected by tsunami and war. We are thinking of posting this at bookcrossing forum. I am not sure yet but maybe we can ask for help there, too.

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