Building Homes, Bonding Families
How was the programme born?
During my service in the field of social work, I constantly came across children and families faced with numerous adversities and unable to meet even the most basic needs such as food, clothing and housing – still, possessing amazing resilience. Often, resources and services do not reach them due to various systemic and structural issues, and they are dependent on the benevolence of individuals until such time more efficient social service mechanisms are established to address the needs of under-resourced families and communities.
In 2014, I went on a field visit to the Southern Province of Sri Lanka for a study I was conducting in my capacity as an independent child rights practitioner and researcher. There, while conducting an interview with a government field official, a harrowing story about a family in need in a nearby area was shared with me, with a request for support. It was a story of a family of 3 small children, abandoned by their mother. They however were blessed with an exceptionally loving father who were doting on them. He was a daily wage earner with a meagre income, living in a small shack with less than the bare minimum. But having grown up in a child care home, he was determined to raise his children himself with all the love and care he could give them, and was not willing to let them out of his sight even for a moment. Placing them in care – an option the government was seriously considering – was out of the question for him. My heart was filled with compassion as I listened to him speaking with tears pouring down his face, pleading not to separate him from his children, while his 10-year-old daughter who had bravely escaped a rape attack by an unknown man the night before, hid shyly behind him. It was impossible for me to leave without doing something to help this family. At the time I was completely inexperienced in this kind of direct interventions, but I had to do something, I had to try. Thereafter, I just wrote an appeal and emailed it to my family and friends, and with an incredible alignment of all forces, I managed to raise the entire amount of funds required to build a house for this family within just 5 days! (Read the full story below).
On hindsight and many projects later, it is clear to me that this was none other than a divine calling, which I am truly glad I chose to follow.
Which issue does the programme try to address?
After the successful completion of the first housing project, I started receiving requests for supporting more families in similar circumstances. Gradually, through a very organic process, the “Building Homes, Bonding Families” programme emerged where now we are supporting a family every year through a very organized and cohesive process. The programme seeks to strengthen and empower families with children (below the age of 18), and has the following objectives:
Preventing children from being separated from their families and being placed in residential care (a.k.a. ‘orphanages’), a process known as ‘deinstitutionalization’. This also includes reunifying children who are already in care, with their families of origin.
Strengthening family bonds and positive inter-relations.
Strengthening the family’s capacity to optimize their physical and psychosocial wellbeing.
Ensuring a protective environment for children within the family and community.
Optimizing the wellbeing of children and opportunities for the realization of their full potential.
This initiative is an attempt at addressing income and multi-dimensional poverty as well as family disintegration, two of the most pervasive root causes of child institutionalization (i.e. children being placed in residential or out-of-home care), which also places many children at risk of abuse and neglect. Furthermore, one of the researches I was involved in revealed that in about 70% of the sample cases of child institutionalization in Sri Lanka, the absence of proper housing was one of the main causes of child-family separation. A meaningful and sustainable solution for risks to child survival, development and protection can only be found in strengthening the family unit that has the primary responsibility towards nurturing a child from birth onwards. This cannot be achieved through sporadic, temporary solutions that render families further dependent.
Although we are still prioritizing families where children have already been or are at risk of being placed in residential care, we also started including families with children in various challenging circumstances even though there may not be an imminent risk of child-family separation – especially if our assessment proves that there is significant potential for empowering the family and breaking the cycle of inter-generational poverty and family dysfunction.
In addition to housing, which is the main component of the initiative, we also provide livelihood support for the family and educational support for children, as well as legal, health and psychosocial support where required.
Where and how is the programme implemented?
The “Building Homes, Bonding Families” programme is implemented in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka, which comprises of the 3 districts of Galle, Matara and Hambantota. We have supported several families in Galle and Matara, and hope to expand to Hambantota in the near future.
The programme is a collaborative effort between the government and private/individual donors, and the Divisional Secretariat (local government body) of the Divisional Secretariat Divisions (DSDs) where the initiative is being implemented have extended their full support. I act as the coordinator between the government officials and donors. The ground level support including regular monitoring is provided by the Divisional Secretaries of the DSDs and their teams, especially the Child Rights Promotion Officer (CRPO) of the Weligama DSD in the Matara District who coordinates all field level activities including the direct engagements with the families.
The programme undertakes to support and empower only one family per year as we prioritize quality, and also because we are a small team. We prefer to keep it small and manageable so that we can give full attention to the family, especially given the complexity of family (and sometimes community) dynamics, conditions and requirements. We were able to maintain this pace and momentum except for the year 2020 where progress was stunted for a while due to the pandemic. The family is chosen annually after a thorough assessment following field visits conducted by myself together with the relevant government officials. Continuous monitoring and follow up of the family is done for at least 2 years by the DS team as per requirement, with periodic visits to the family by myself as well.
What difference are we making?
What we have observed so far is that the ethos and environment of the family changes remarkably with the gift of a house of their own, because the house does not provide them only with security but also hope, confidence, freedom and belonging. It is a space that allows them to dream, aspire and create. It creates a home for them to come back to; it creates bonds they can rely on for life. We have seen a clear energetic shift taking place within the families; we have seen the relationships among family members improve along with their economic growth and the children’s educational performance; we have seen adolescent boys returning home instead of gallivanting with gangs and getting into trouble, and adults learning to dress smartly and improve their hygiene; we have seen amazing transformation in both physical and mental health of family members; and we have also seen these families, previously the social ‘outcasts’, being recognized and respected by their communities. Certainly, the impact is far deeper than the conventional measures of ‘success’, which tends to focus on material indicators. The changes we see are more subtle, relational and existential. It is indeed wonderous how the unifying space of a house brings clarity, and changes the psyche of a human being and her/his perception of self, the world and life itself.
However, the reality is that some families rise faster and stronger than others, depending on their own capacities. The ‘success’ or transformation depends on a variety of internal and external factors, not all of which are within the control of an external intervention. Therefore, despite all the support given, there will always be a few families which continue to struggle due to various complex environmental, ecological, psychosocial and individual/inter-personal factors. Nonetheless, we have seen a positive change in every single family, and at the very least, safety is ensured for the children – specially girls – who otherwise experience severe vulnerabilities without proper housing.
One of the key lessons we have learned over the years is that it is unreasonable to have a common denominator of ‘success’ or in other words, standard expectations from the families we are supporting. Not every family will be a rags-to-riches story, and in fact, does not need to be either. They have their own understanding and experience of happiness and wellbeing, which we need to respect. This does not mean that we do not have the responsibility of providing them with knowledge, skills, guidance and exposure, and motivate them to aspire towards better quality of life. However, at the end of the day, we need to be cautious of imposing on them our own ideals or values of what ‘happiness’ entails, or worse, judging them for not subscribing to the same.
The process of empowering a family is a very challenging task, because it is far more than just building a house. The process of house construction itself is specked with numerous challenges from land disputes instigated by envious relatives to prices of material doubling overnight. But it requires far greater persistence and energy to build healthy lifestyles and positive mentalities, and change patterns established over generations. Added to this is the lack of ground level mechanisms or support systems that are well-equipped to heal the many wounds that families often carry. However, the joyful smile of a child who has received a bed of his own to sleep on, and the relief in the eyes of a child who knows she no longer has to return to a care home makes every single challenge worth it, together with the big shifts we witness some of the families make over time.
Read all the stories of the families we have supported so far and how their lives have changed over the years.
What can you do to help?
Over the years, many generous individual (local) donors have joined this initiative, with whose support we have so far been able to elevate the conditions of 6 families and prevented 20 children from being separated from their families. This includes 5 children who were in child care homes and 1 in a pirivena (a monastic school for the education of Buddhist monks) who were reunified with their families through this initiative. The current socio-economic situation of the country has brought in a lot of challenges in the continuation of the programme due to the escalation of the cost of both material and labour. Since 2015, the cost per project has literally doubled, from USD 1,800 to USD 3,600 (conversion rate as of March 2022). Therefore, we need a little bit more support, to be able to continue to build hopes, homes, families and bonds.
What we often take for granted can build an entire life of a family and fulfill the dreams of so many little hearts. If you would like to share your blessings, please contact me, Chathuri Jayasooriya, at dropsoflight6666@gmail.com.
Please note that we do not share personal/identifiable information of families publicly in order to protect their privacy and dignity as well as the safety of children. However, we share relevant information including government approvals and expenditure details with all the donors directly, along with monthly progress updates via email, for the duration of the project period.
