The 5th Biennial Conference on Alternative Care for Children in Asia was held over two days in September 2023 in Kathmandu, Nepal. Hundreds of representatives attended from across the globe – practitioners, government representatives, academics and most important, young people with lived experience in care.
Brighter Path funded three young care leavers from Sri Lanka, enabling them to attend this important conference. Each had the opportunity to share their own experiences of the Sri Lankan care system and to meet other care experienced young people from other countries. The Bicon is an important event in the Asian care sector. Running since 2014 it has always placed emphasis on hearing and learning first hand from those who have experienced care.
Topics covered included the policy gaps encountered by care leavers: in financial security, housing, education, access to healthcare and in employment.
Brighter Path’s general manager also attended and was able both to share examples of our best practice as well as keeping abreast of developments in the sector.
We have established a partnership with the Vikasha Girls Training Centre’s school of sewing and needlecraft. Vikasha is an children’s home in Bandarawella which only looks after girls who for various reasons cannot attend mainstream school or have dropped out of education. Its sewing school provides specialist training for seamstresses. The girls then have the opportunity to obtain skilled employment which would otherwise not be available to them. This school has struggled to obtain enough supplies, particularly in the current economic climate in Sri Lanka with nationwide shortages of materials. Brighter Path is now providing materials for the running of the school.
At Brighter Path we provide mobile phones to all our care leavers. These are essential for navigating everyday life: building a network of friends and a social life, contacting employers and colleagues, and accessing the internet.
Receiving a mobile phone for the first time is always a source of great excitement for our new care leavers. With this comes responsibility and we take very seriously the need for education on using phones safely and productively.
We run regular workshops for our new care leavers and refresher courses for our more experienced care leavers. Topics that we address include: navigating social media safely, sleep hygiene and good habits, avoiding on-line scams, excessive gaming and addiction, gambling, fake news, harmful advice and pornography.
Phones are such an opportunity but education in using them safely is essential, particularly for young people who have never had access to them growing up.
This week we were delighted to welcome Nadeesha Chathurangani, Commissioner for Probation and Childcare in the Uwa Province. She visited two of our transition homes and the Brighter Path office. She enjoyed meeting our care leavers and commented on how impressed she was by the facilities as well as ‘the focus on wellbeing and helping care leavers become productive members of society’. She told us how much she liked ‘the concept and good practices of Brighter Path Foundation’. We look forward to working with Commissioner Chathurangani as we develop best practices for care leavers in Sri Lanka.
We were thrilled to open a new girls’ transition home in Colombo this week. Our first residents have already moved in and are settling into their new home.
We know that we can make a real difference to the lives of young women by providing accommodation, by funding training and further education, and by teaching life skills and providing high quality mentoring in a safe and supportive environment. When young women leave children’s homes at 18 they are particularly vulnerable. They usually have nowhere to live and no work. Our new girls’ transition home will provide the stability, safety, and community to our female care leavers that will allow them to flourish in the outside world. Beyond having a home base from which to study and work, the girls in our transition home will also participate in our life skills program to set them up for success.
Transition homes provide care leavers the chance to change the course of their whole life. We are delighted to be able to provide this opportunity to more female care leavers.
We were delighted to welcome British High Commissioner Sarah Hulton OBE to visit one of our transition homes today. Sarah was given a tour of the house by one of the boys and was able to spend time hearing their stories and learning about their training and work.
We enjoyed a delicious cake made by one of our care leavers who is training to be a pastry chef.
Caroline was pleased to give a short presentation explaining the Brighter Path model, our different programmes and the exciting plans for the new girls’ transition home.
We are grateful to Sarah for taking time to visit us and for the kindness she showed to all our care leavers and staff.
Although not the most obvious part of our work, in 2022 we have continued to provide significant legal support to care leavers. Many leave orphanages without birth certificates or other essential paperwork and court applications are required to produce ‘probable’ birth certificates. Others remain subject to court orders, often made without their knowledge, which have put them in the nominal care of siblings or other adults. These orders require a court hearing before they can be discharged.
Some care leavers find themselves caught up in historic criminal complaints arising out of their time in children’s homes. Too often they find themselves to be easy targets for law enforcement agencies and miscarriages of justice are common. Brighter Path provides legal support to young care leavers to ensure that they have access to proper legal advice during these investigations, something which is vitally important but rarely available through the state.
This week a young care leaver living in one of our transition homes graduated with an upper second class degree in Sociology from the prestigious University of Colombo. That would be a reason to celebrate for anyone but in Chameera’s case the achievement is even more special. Chameera came to us two years ago having been referred by the University. Born without any legs Chameera is a full time wheelchair user. He spent his whole childhood in an orphanage. As the pandemic struck Sri Lanka he found himself living in an old people’s home as nowhere else would have him. He was confined to a dormitory for many hours a day and he did not have the internet access he required for remote learning. This was a wholly unsuitable environment for a young student and Chameera was on the point of abandoning his studies.
We had to make some adaptations to Chameera’s transition home to make it suitable for a wheelchair user but as soon as the work was done he moved in and hasn’t looked back. He picked up his remote studies and when the local restrictions were lifted was able to return to studying in person. Whilst studying at university Chameera has been a valued member of the Brighter Path programme, participating in our mentoring programmes and contributing fully to the everyday life of the transition home with his housemates.
Chameera has overcome so much to achieve his academic dream and is looking forward to a successful graduate career. Brighter Path is proud to have been able to support him on this journey.
