In early October Kushil Gunasekera, the Founder / Trustee of the Foundation of Goodness flew to Australia to surprise his daughters on their birthday. While spending some time with his daughters Kushil visited their new school Sacre Coeur in Glen Iris. Following a request by Ms. Suzie .... the teacher in charge of the Year 5 group, Kushil spoke to the Year 5 students, explaining all about the Foundation of Goodness, how it started and how it developed several fold after the tsunami.

He told these girls about the children in the village of Seenigama and surrounding region. Coming from extremely poor backgrounds many of the children in these villages, like the adults, faced the horrors of the tsunami. They saw their fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and friends being swept away by the huge waves. Many were left motherless or fatherless, without homes, without a means of addressing their needs, without even the clothes they had on that fateful morning. Living in camps and makeshift shelters these children in an instant found themselves dependent on the kindness and compassion of the many people around the world who so generously and unstintingly extended help. Kushil also told these girls about other poor children in neighbouring regions. Though the tsunami did not reach these areas, these children also live in extreme poverty. Just like the tsunami affected children, they cannot afford school books or pencils. The one or two uniforms they have are patched and re sewn many times over and are worn until they become rags. They walk miles to school barefoot and sometimes spend the whole school day on the one cup of tea they have for breakfast. Living in one or two roomed clay or wooden huts these children, sitting on earth floors with their books on their laps, study by lamp light.

Kushil also explained about the many programmes that are run through the Foundation of Goodness to alleviate extreme and abject poverty and to empower and uplift both tsunami affected and non-affected rural communities. The vast areas covered by the Foundation include Housing, Livelihoods, Children's Needs, Schools Development, Health Care, Sports, Vocational Training & Development, Environment, Community Development, Women's Needs, Elderly & Disabled Needs and much more. The Foundation of Goodness with it's holistic approach is developing a rural community model on which, in the not too distant future, we hope all rural and impoverished communities the world over will be able to move towards a more developed status through empowerment and better opportunities.

Little did Kushil and the Foundation of Goodness realise that what started as simple visit to his daughters' school would materialise into one of the most heart warming gestures that the Foundation has experienced. These students of Sacre Coeur took to heart what they heard about these children so like them in many ways and yet so unlike them. “Last week, we met a man who speaks and works for the people of Sri Lanka. On the 10th of October, Kushil Gunasekera came to the year 5 classroom and talked to us about what happened during the Boxing Day tsunami in his village in Sri Lanka. He also talked about life before and after the tsunami. Kushil's talk touched my heart and moved me in a way in which he explained that the children in his village had no clean water to drink and no shoes to wear. I immediately felt sorry for the children and reflected how sometimes we in Australia take things for granted” said Branavie after the visit, while Rachel and Mandy said “The entire talk inspired and motivated us both to save our pocket money and donate it to the Foundation established by Kushil. His statement “Waves of compassion are stronger than waves of destruction” really left us with something to reflect on.” The empathy and the feelings of kindness and generosity that these girls felt towards those children less fortunate than themselves made the Year 5 girls want to take immediate action. During one lunchtime these girls got together and held an ice-cream stall to collect as much funds as they could to help these poor children who like impoverished children all over the world hope for a brighter future someday.

It was not only the Year 5 girls who were inspired by and moved to act by what the Foundation has achieved and tremendous amount of work that the Foundation is still involved in. Taking the elective Marketing a Small Business taught by Miss Belinda Houston some of the Year 9 and 10 girls held a Chips and Wedges Stall with the aim of donating their profits to a charity organization. Carefully considering many charities the five students of the 'Wedgies' Stall honoured the Foundation of Goodness by choosing it as the worthy recipient. In a letter to the Foundation of Goodness these students explained why they had chosen the Foundation of Goodness “because it's for young people and we can relate to them.”

Together both groups of girls were able to raise sufficient funds to help many less fortunate children from Seenigama and the surrounding area. These children will be given school essential items packs. Each pack costs as little as US $20 or AUS $25 and includes a school bag, a pair of school shoes, uniform, school books and stationary, water bottle and several other items. Because of the compassion, kindness and consideration shown by the students of Sacre Coeur many under privileged students will be able to look forward to the new school year with confidence, relieved from the burden of poverty that affects even the smallest of children, and secure in the knowledge that at least in the coming school year their school needs are taken care of. Thus a birthday surprise for two girls in Australia will become a truly wonderful New Year surprise for sixty-five other children in rural Sri Lanka and as Keshia and Rashmika, who know their dad very well, would say “nothing multiplies as much as kindness.”
 

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For more information on the work of the Foundation of Goodness, see www.unconditionalcompassion.com.