Focus areas

1. Dry rations distribution to low income families

   One of the primary reasons to form GVCT was to help extremely poor families that were undergoing severe hardships during covid pandemic. Though the world recovered from the pandemic, Srilankans continued to suffer due to serious economic and political crises and the large number of families especially in the rural areas have lost their livelihoods and are struggling to meet their day to day living expenses.Most of our efforts during our first two years were made in this program and we executed the “Dry Rations Distribution” projects at six instances during the past two years at regular intervals, mostly coinciding with festivals celebrated in Jaffna.

   Beneficiary families are selected and proposed by Grama Sevaka (GS) officers based on their monthly income and social standings. Families with single mothers, elderly people living separately and families with physically challenged members are given preference.

2.  Education assistance to needy children
   We strongly believe that an educated community will be the long term solution to improve the adverse economic conditions of low income families.A large number of children are deprived of getting proper education because of a lack of adequate income from their parents.

   Under the above program, capable children from low-income families are carefully selected based on the recommendations made  by school principals and supported with monthly assistance to meet their tuition fees or other education related expenses.

   Students from year 9 to G.C.E (O/L) are paid a monthly assistance of Rs. 3,000/- , G.C.E (A/L) students are paid Rs. 5,000/- a month, and the University students are paid Rs. 10,000/- per month.

   We commenced this program mid last year and presently support 8 students below G.C.E (O/L), 2 G.C.E (A/L) students and 2 University students. We plan to increase the total student numbers to around 20-25 during 2023, depending on the support we receive from our donors.

3.  Self employment support
   As per the famous Chinese proverb “give a man a fish you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, GVCT extends our support to low income families by providing small scale funding either to commence a new self employment project or to expand an existing self employment activity.As a result of three decades long ethnic war in Sri Lanka that ended in 2009, there is a large number of women-led families in the northern and eastern provinces. GVCT commenced self employment support in 2022 providing assistance to three such families. The details are provided under the completed project tab in the website.

   We plan to substantially expand this program in 2023 and coming years.

4.  Schools infrastructure enhancement support
   We are approached by the principals of few schools time to time for assistance for critical infrastructure related needs. Though the government is responsible for providing necessary funds to all government schools for all their needs, due to the economic crisis faced by the country, there is a long delay in getting the required funds by the schools.Whenever we come across such needs, especially those shortcomings affect the learning of students, we approach our donors for assistance.

   We undertook two such projects during 2022. Please refre complected projects section for details.

5.  Miscellaneous “on-demand” Projects

 Ongoing projects

1.Schools uniform and accessories project
Based on GVCT team interactions with the principals and teachers, the leading reason for frequent absence can be attributed to lack of resources. To encourage consistent attendance, we decided to provide necessary items such as uniforms, shoes, backpacks as well as undergarments. Our goal is to be able to fund upwards of 200 underprivileged students attending primary schools (Roman Catholic Tamil Mixed School, Santhrothaya Vithiyasalai and Saiva Tamil Vidyalayam) in Urumpirai. To date we have two donors who have agreed to provide 200 backpacks which roughly estimates to Rs. 400,000/-. We are projecting Rs. 6000/- for uniforms, shoes, and undergarments per student. Distribution of items will be held in the 3rd or 4th week of February before the beginning of next school year. The upcoming school calendar year has been postponed due to pandemic response measures.

2.Saivathamizh school students scholarship program

3.G. C. E (A/L) students assistance program

4.University students scholarship program

 Completed projects

• Neerveli project

• Dry rations distribution
• Urumpirai Santhirothayam water pump project
• Urumpirai RCTM school roof repair project
• Self employment assistance projects

  Upcoming projects

• Expanding students scholarship program