Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted many of the difficulties care leavers around the world struggle with on a daily basis.
Covid-19
Covid-19 Response
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted many of the difficulties care leavers around the world struggle with on a daily basis: housing, finance, health care, social support, employment, nutrition and hygiene. In Sri Lanka the situation was no different.
A typical care leaver in Sri Lanka works in a low-income job with daily wages. In the national lockdown these jobs disappeared, and workers were laid off.
This in turn created an accommodation crisis. Care leavers living in cheap, rented accommodation were unable to pay their landlords and faced eviction. Others live in low-cost boarding or hostels attached to their workplace. They were forced to spend months at a time in cramped accommodation never intended for people to spend extended periods of time in.
Whilst many in society had the option of returning to family homes, often away from the big cities this was not an option for most care leavers.
The Brighter Path transition homes provided a much needed safe space and caring environment in this difficult period. We also made grants to individual care leavers to enable them to stay in their own accommodation.
The Generation Never Give Up network tracked down care leavers in greatest need and sought assistance from partner organisations, particularly aimed at helping those with young families. We were delighted to respond to both their appeals with generous support.
Further Reading

Visit to the Vishaka Training Centre
Following the establishment of a partnership between Brighter Path and the sewing school of the Vishaka Training Centre in Bandarawella it was good to return to see how the girls …

Family Strengthening
As part of our ‘family strengthening’ programme we returned to the greater Polannaruwa area where we distributed food, dry rations and other essential supplies to vulnerable families. These are primarily …

Accessibility Works
Last month we completed some major adaptation works to the Brighter Path transition home in Colombo to make it suitable for wheelchair users. The most important part of our project was …



