ABDF

• Location: Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
• Recipients:2,100 female students
• Objective:Supply English Lab
• Final cost:$455 US

St. Cecilia’s Girls School.

St. Cecilia’s is the oldest girls school in Batticaloa District. It serves the needs of approximately 2,100 girls of junior- and high school age. Although run by nuns under the auspices of the Catholic Church, the school accepts students of all religious denominations, even offering religious instruction to the girls according to their personal confessions. There is no attempt made to convert the students, and the school celebrates the religious holidays of all attendant religions.

St. Cecilia's chapel.

In 2003, the Sri Lankan government mandated that schools must provide the option of English instruction. (Formerly, classes had only been taught in Sinhalese or Tamil, depending upon the part of the country.) Given that English is the language of business and politics in Sri Lanka, let alone the world at large, instruction in English has been in extremely high demand, especially in Tamil-speaking areas such as Batticaloa. Unfortunately, despite its mandate, the government has done little to supply schools with the resources to teach English.

The wire screens allow air to flow through the classroom.

A reverse view of the same classroom set aside for the English lab.

St. Cecilia’s has set aside a room to use as an English laboratory, and plans to install computers there. ABDF.org has been asked to provide two things.

First, there is an urgent need for audio-visual English instructional software.

More English language supplies and books are needed.

Second, there is a need for age-appropriate books to stock the extremely meager English library.

Towards this, ABDF.org is searching for one or more vendors of English instructional software to provide their products as an in-kind donation. Furthermore, ABDF.org has a way to ship books to Sri Lanka at reasonable prices, and we are looking for donations to help defray the cost of this.

St. Cecilia students.

It is a fact that the only way these girls will help themselves and their families claw up out of poverty is through English fluency. Studies from around the world prove that by educating girls and women, the entire family and community benefits. A well provided English Lab will give these girls a much better chance at success. This, plus the religiously tolerant and non-discriminatory policies of the school itself, makes this project a prime candidate for ABDF.org support. This is a project which can only do good.

St. Cecilia’s English Lab Update - 2008

The donated books arrive.

St. Cecilia students helping unpack the donated books.

The books we donated to St. Cecilia’s Girls School arrived safe and sound. They were taken to St. Cecilia’s on Monday the 12th of May, 2008. A group of students helped unpack the books and couldn’t wait to start leafing through them. The books easily quadrupled, if not more, the number of English books previously available which were mostly grammar books. And let’s face it; that is boring reading. Now the girls have a whole selection of books to choose from, from science, geography and history books aimed at children, to kids mysteries such as Nancy Drew, to such classics as The Wizard of Oz and Tom Sawyer.

This completes the first phase of our work with St. Cecelia’s.