HeartSerene and Invincible
International Needs Satisfaction
- Admittedly a very ambitious undertaking, the HeartSerene and Invincible Foundation is a non-profit, charitable NGO. Being
developed to meet three very sad areas of deficiency in the third world. We begin in Sri Lanka, where we are already active and
familiar with the deficiencies and conditions that impose those needs.
These are deficiencies that are prevalent in all the third world, though yet hardly addressed. Poverty is a condition that is being
addressed except that the approach is mere alleviation and not permanent correction. Alleviation is like a band aid, a temporary
hand-out which promoted dependence, laziness and waste of funds.
Conditions are a form of oppression on the poverty stricken who are largely under-educated, uder-skilled, under-nourished and worst
of all with large families.
Funding the correction of these needs is the problem. Almost impossible because the ratio of earnings to spendable income allows
little room for donations from local sources. During the past ten years the total amount of donations received by The Threshold
Foundation from local sources for operations (free of payroll costs as the foundation is served by volunteers), was less than Rupees
60,000.00 while the costs exceeded the equivalent of US $ 2,000.00 a year. From US standards that amount very little, but
necessarily covered out of the personal resources of the founder.
Child Slavery
- Helpless little girls, innocent victims of parental poverty, deprived of schooling, placed in other households as home help on an
assurance of care and schooling but enslaved, abused and violated.
Unheard, unseen, girls more than boys in Sri Lanka, are subject to gender discrimination and even prone to abuse and
violation in their own homes. If traced by the authorities without schooling and/or enslaved, subject to removal and
incarceration indefinitely in the State’s remand facilities.
No longer cute and cuddly, they have nothing to look forward to in their drab and short lived lives but neglect, exploitation,
violation and degradation with:-
no powerful lobbies to fight for their recognition, freedom, protection, care and development
no government concern except a pitiful sum of Rs.600.00 (US$6.00) a month for subsistence,
no respect in their own homes where even the younger males get preference over them,
no voting rights to attract the attention and support of politicians and political aspirants,
no freedom to go out and earn their own living or find less abusive alternatives,
no buying or trading power to attract sincere concern and assistance from the corporate sector no hand-up instead of the
customary trade of a check for publicity,
no sympathetic media coverage unless they are raped, injured or scandalous in behavior,
no parental capability to allow them to grow without being easy prey to abuse and violation.
If enslaved girls are removed by the authorities, both parents and employers are subject to criminal action and the employers
liable to pay large compensation awards to the girls, held in independent trusts until the girls become 18 years.
Volunteer members of The Threshold Foundation meet with and try to change the attitude of employers towards the enslaved
girls by offering to suspend criminal action and the consequent heavy compensation award, also making them eligible for the
government’s child subsidy of Rs. 600.00 (US$6.00) per month, if they change from employers to foster parents, care for the girls
as members of the family and send them to school with the family’s children. The arrangement subject to monitoring without
prior warning to ensure compliance.
The Threshold Foundation
non-profit, tax exempt NGO in Sri Lanka, constituted in September 2000 to save the increasing number of enslaved little girls
aged 4 yrs. to 14 yrs., from ruin and before they are removed by the authorities... To the country’s shame, these girls are put to
work without schooling and often abused and even violated.
When reported by neighbors, the authorities remove the girls to remand facilities and house them together with hardened
delinquents with consequent corruption of the innocent. Although the State does institute criminal proceedings against
parents and employers, deep congestion in the courts system rarely bring these cases to trial in less than 3 to 5 years.
Meanwhile the girls languish indefinitely in jail-like remand homes without schooling.
The mission of the foundation is to save girls before they are sent to remand. To ensure their care and education until they are
18 years of age and able to fend for themselves as self-sufficient, capable and well balanced young women.
There is no funding to enable the foundation to take the girls into its care, to house them in safer environments and provide for
their development until they reach 18 years of age. It is also very difficult to find adoptive or foster homes for the girls,
especially with the low subsistence offered by the government and the lack of charitable funding.
The girls, although enslaved, are housed and fed in their employers households; though the quality of that food and shelter
may be questionable, the alternatives are worse.
Removal of the girls with criminal prosecution and heavy compensation awards by the courts is strong leverage to change
employers into foster parents. Suspending action subject to conversion of the girls from household slave to foster child with
schooling and care.
With the child being treated with respect as a member of the family and sent to school, the foster parent becomes eligible for the
monthly subsistence allowance paid out be the government on the child’s behalf. Subject of course to unscheduled monitoring
by the foundation.
Again, this correction is easily adaptive for both Child Care authorities and concerned citizens to apply instead of removing
the girls into worse situations.
Under-Skilled Breadwinners, Parents Struggling Against Rising Costs
- Under-skilled middle class family breadwinners struggling to maintain living standards they grew up with and provide their
children with a similar home, schooling environment and opportunities are fighting a losing battle in the face of rising costs
and worsening conditions. They do not need a hand-out but they do need assistance to overcome their deficiencies.
A special program of assistance under development will retrain or upgrade skills of both breadwinners in eligible families.
Raising their employment value to a wage level which will both meet their current needs and open avenues for further
development on that base.
The upgrade or retraining program requires a commitment from as many of the members in a family as is possible to give the
time and effort and, make necessary sacrifices to make it work. Arranged through selected, local, qualified providers with
payments made directly to providers in relation to sustained progress and reports from independent monitors associated with
us. Programs are at present dependent upon the willingness of caring Sri Lankan expatriates living abroad who can commit
to assisting one family in Sri Lanka at a time.
Upgrading or retraining one or both parents of a family to raise their employable value and earnings strengths to meet their
needs. An effective hand-up, no hand-out. Continued support is necessarily subject to satisfactory progress and performance
by the upgrading or retraining provider. Checks and balances are in place to ensure expected results.
Poverty Correction in Sri Lanka
Poverty, positively and correctively addressed, without hand-outs and wasteful alleviation.
Poverty does not have to be a permanent condition. Poverty is both preventable and corrective, affecting people in every walk
of life. Poverty all the world over is on the increase because the agencies involved practice alleviation, not correction. There is a
difference.
Alleviation is temporary relief while the reason for and resulting poverty continues uncorrected. Alleviation offers no
incentive to try. Merely a stop gap, a “band aid”, only encourages dependence and lethargy. Awaiting the next hand-out.
The reason for poverty is insufficient income to meet needs. Unless it is through age, disability or lack of employment
opportunities, the answer is wages for work. Available jobs may also have disincentives to work where an employer sells his
services or products at prices that do not allow him to offer a living wage.
Ground floor, entry level jobs can always be found or arranged for the unskilled, able bodied or the otherwise enabled. It is the
approach that determines the result. It needs understanding and consideration by employers, providing a hand-up, not a
hand-out.
A job with a wage so low, it requires the wage earner to subsidize his employer’s services or products to clients is not worth
taking. Especially when it will force the wage earner to get indebted to the grocer to make up the short fall, in effect, actually
funding the employer’s operation.
The ideal is a job opportunity that leads to an occupation related to a workers natural best and most productive medium of self-
expression. A worker will seldom reject or leave it even where it may require some level of belt tightening for awhile.
The reluctance of employers to take on unskilled workers for on-the-job training is the ever present possibility that with a little
orientation they move to another employer for higher wages. It is true that workers assume a higher skills level in shorter
periods and project that image to other employers.
The authorities can promote entry level ground floor opportunities from large employers with tax or other incentives based on
a percentage of their work force. Schools and training institutions can also be encouraged to provide upgrade or retraining
for the under-skilled. With the incentives offered, it matters little to employer or retrainer if a subject moves out and is replaced
by another. The compensation will not decrease as the vacancy will be filled by a replacement.
| On this page Child Slavery Underskilled Breadwinners Poverty Correction |
Sole Copywrights, Sus'anta Heendeniya
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