Time to make a voice agaist drug and child abuse - ICY programme

As a followup of a decision taken at the ICY seminar and the youth leadership training held at Mirigama in August 2010 YMCA of Pamunugama organized a oneday awareness building programme on Drug and Child Abuse on 22 October at the YMCA of Pamunugama. Drug is becoming a rising problem in the village at the moment and it is important to prevent it before it gets worse. Mr. J Indika talked about drugs and addiction in the morning and Mr. Manoj Samarasekara spoke about child abuse and the actions to prevent it after the lunch break. Both speakers are vastly experinced professionals in the field. 25 Youth, girlguides and prefects from 4 surrrounding school attended this event.

Leadership Training for Peralanda School

YMCA of Pamunugama had a successful day camp at Peralande school with 43 students from Grades 9 & 10. During the programme we discussed on different aspects of leadership such as creativity, cooperation, trust and decision making through practical activities and games.  The students and staff were satisfied with our programme which came to a close with camp fire late in the evening. It was great to see the students performing during the campfire and it was the first campfire experince for most of the students. We advised the staff to introduce YMCA among the students (Students' YMCA) so that they could organise similar programmes in the future.

Cooperative farm and the community Development Programme in the East

Meeting with the resettled families

YMCA of Pamunugama is in the process of developing a community development programme for a group of people resettled after 24 years at Ottachchakulama 29 Km of North of Gomarankadawela in the Eastern Province. There are 38 families resettled who had to ran away from their lands in 1984 due to the war. Though they are resettled, still they are living with very poor conditions. YMCA have formed smaller groups among these families by now and they have already started savings and YMCA has already provided seeds to restart farming and soon there will be new 3 wells which they can use to get water for farming during the dry season. YMCA of Pamunugama have already been able to find a land to start the cooperative farm together with this community. Premachandra Edirisinghe, a young man has been appointed as the field officer and our good friend W.M. Disanayake (dedicated man for the community in the area) coordinate the peoject.  



New farm supported by the YMCA

Paralarly to this new initiative we have expanded our educational programme in Gomarankadawela area by providing more extra educational classes and soon planing to build a small community house that can be used for educational classes and other social gatherings. We get the fullest support from Sumanasara Thero in the Medawachchiya Buddhist Temple to carry out all these work. Group of YMCA Pamunugama leaders visited the area on 10-12 October and there will be a nother visit on 8 November to examine the process and to conduct a programme for the children and parents of the Kivulkada school in Gomarankadawela. YMCA Pamunugama involved with this process as an extention of the friendship we have with the community in the Gomarankadawela area and the US embassy supports us financially.

Art exibition and Universal Children’s Day celebrations

One of the paintings

During group activities

It was very colorful in the YMCA hall with 287 paintings at the art exibition organized by the YMCA to mark the Universel Children’s day on 16 October, 2010. Programme was started with a introduction to the day by Ranjith Fonseka, General Secretary and followed up with activities and games and activities. Children enjoyed very much the short carrom and badminton tournamets organized for them by the youth club of the YMCA of Pamunugama.  Then the lunch was prepared by the YMCA adult leaders from the board and community development programme for all. After the lunch the paintings were exibited and children who painted and some of their parents also came to see the paintings. Best paintings were chosen under 4 age categories and awareded with educational equipments while all those who had paintings were given a participation certificate. There were 55 children 12 parents attended the programme.