Working to help poor and disadvantaged children and adults

Welcome to the Volunteer Sri Lanka Project

The Volunteer Sri Lanka Project is run by Janaka de Silva (the Project Manager) to encourage volunteers to come to help the poor people of Sri Lanka. Volunteers will have the opportunity work with children and adults in many different settings.

Our Mission

The sole purpose of the Project is to bring to Sri Lanka volunteers from around the world to come help the poor people of our country. We are a non discriminatory and non religious organisation. People with almost every skill you can think of are welcome! Whatever your age, from 17 to 70, we welcome you to come and help us. Whatever your skills, they can be used to alleviate suffering, improve learning, health, living conditions and the ability to earn a living, to enable children, some of whom are orphans, to have fun and bring comfort to the sick and lonely. The Volunteer Sri Lanka Project offers the opportunity for volunteers to work with children and adults in many different settings.

Janaka offers volunteers the opportunity to share his home in with his much loved wife, four children, other relatives and himself. Janaka extends his home to provide good, ensuite volunteer accommodation because he feels that when people are kind enough to give their time and funds to helping the poor, they deserve to be treated well.

The volunteer accommodation is a Home Stay arrangement and not a hotel. Therefore, during their stay in Sri Lanka volunteers take responsibility for managing their own rooms and laundry.

In Sri Lanka volunteers have the opportunity to work with orphans, with children needing help with home work after school and at weekends at the Tsunami Memorial Library, to run sports activities, to teach at local schools, at a school with hearing impaired children, children with learning difficulties, in nursery schools, to care for the elderly, work at the teaching hospital, at the Nurses Training School, an orphanage, do DIY or building work at the Library and the Buddhist Temple, – according to each volunteer’s preference and skills.

Janaka wants to start skills training at the Temple to provide IT, sewing, carpentry, building, plumbing and electrical installation training. Arts and crafts skills can be taught to local people so that they can make items to sell to tourists. The plan is to start the skills training, teaching IT using secondhand laptops that have been donated. (More are needed!) The next phase of the plan is to use the small profits from the Sri Lanka volunteer fee to buy sewing machines to provide sewing and tailoring instruction.

We need a civil engineer who can not only teach the locals, but to permanently solve the serious flooding problems at the Temple where local people take refuge when their homes are inundated by flood waters from the canal and rains.

Volunteers with such skills could be instrumental in pioneering all this with Janaka. It would be an invaluable contribution to people of the local community, making the difference between people being destitute and being able to earn a modest living.

Even a relatively small increase in family income can make a big difference to a family.

The beauty of the Volunteer Sri Lanka Project is that whatever your skills, Janaka will find a way to use them so that you can help the poor. All you need to do is talk to him and he will do the rest!

Volunteer With Us

VOLUNTEER WORK PLACES

This page contains descriptions of the Volunteer Workplaces that the Project supports.

DAILY ROUTINE

This sample schedule is meant to show a typical day in the life of a volunteer

ACCOMMODATION

During their time in Sri Lanka volunteers are accommodated in the home of Janaka de Silva and his family in good sized bedrooms,

PLANNING YOUR TRIP

This page includes information that will help you plan and prepare for your trip.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Local transport costs to and from the sites where you'll be volunteering and weekend travel.

BEING A GOOD VOLUNTEER

Full of initiative but willing to accept input from others who live in the country and are used to the way it works

VOLUNTEER REVIEWS

Michael Spranger

From Austria
It all started with a vague idea to go somewhere and to do something. However, volunteering in Sri Lanka turned out to be one of the most interesting experiences of my life.
My name is Xinchen Xu (Sophie) and I’m from China. I spent 3 weeks in Sri Lanka; this period of time is quite unforgettable and has become one of the best experiences that would never fade in my memory.

Sophie Xinchen Xu

From China