Community
We have been providing Emerge Lanka participants with ‘reintegration packs’. These packs are intended to provide those items which are essential for starting out in independent life.
Community
Support for Emerge Lanka
We are delighted to report on the support that we have been providing to Emerge Lanka. This is a non-profit which focusses on providing support for young girls who have suffered sexual violence. In Sri Lanka, most girls who suffer sexual abuse are placed into the care of the state. This is intended both as a witness protection measure and because the authorities often consider sexual abuse involving a minor to be a failure of both parents. Children who are survivors of abuse are therefore nearly always taken into institutional care rather than being supported in their own homes.
Like Brighter Path, Emerge Lanka tries to deal with the aftermath for these young women who have suffered the trauma not only of the original abuse but also the trauma of court hearings and being dislocated and removed from all that is familiar to them. Emerge runs residential programmes which help young people move on from the institutions in which they have been placed and into the community.
We have been providing Emerge with ‘reintegration packs’. These packs are intended to provide those items which are essential for starting out in independent life. They include toiletries, sanitary pads, basic first aid supplies, bed sheets and a towel, groceries, cooking utensils, a backpack or handbag for work, office shoes and much more. When girls leave Emerge’s home they are helped to find work. However, without support in the transitional period before they receive their first pay packet, they would otherwise have nothing to live on. These packs make a huge difference to the prospects of an individual girl successfully transitioning to independent living.
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 …

Continuing Education
This month we helped two care leavers who approached us about participating in advanced training courses which will help them progress in their chosen careers. In both cases the care …