Children club

Pubudugama is a small community within the Babarenda north Grama Sevaka region. This community is divided into two villages according to the casts of the inhabitants: Pubudugama itself and Kurubura. 45 families live in Pubudugama and 12 families belong to Kurubura. All together 57 families are living in this community.

pottery
Main income of the Pubudugama families comes from pottery. Kurubura mainly has small farmers. Their occupation forms the definition of their cast, this division, though not as strong as before still inhibits social and economic contacts and internal village cooperation. The community is poor, it lacks e.g. medical and school infrastructure.

casts gather
VIN formed the children club at Pubudugama in 2011. Children club meetings take place weekly and VIN Lanka facilitates this programme with staff and some small investments. Children (7 years to 16 years) from both casts gather, play games and do collective children activities in the village. Through these activities they build up understanding between the two communities and build relationships among children from various groups. Not only that but VIN Lanka tries to improve their personal skills such as leadership, communication, team work and sense of responsibility.

newspapers and books
A majority of parents do not have time, money, nor skills to support their children’s studies. The children’s club offers the children a chance to do their school home work collectively. As no parents are able to invest money for students’ external classes –a necessity in Sri lanka due to the bad state of the educational system- , this programme also allows the students to obtain at least some additional knowledge. For instance children are introduced to the use of newspapers and books on a weekly basis, all sorts of educational and creativity sessions are organised, such as introduction to English by means of games.

enhance educational facilities
VIN aims to enhance the educational facilities in the region with free classes pc and English, and by building a library, offering not only free access to books but also to internet and PC equipment. The children’s club has to be seen in this context, and will be integrated in the programme VIN Lanka is elaborating to tackle the poor local educational situation.

March 2012
Project: - scholarship/Children’s club
Place: - Pubudugama community hall