ABDF

• Location: Pavatkodichchenai, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
• Recipients:1 family (affecting 400 families)
• Objective:Sewing machine for school uniforms
• Final cost:$298 US

Each year Sri Lanka provides each student with enough material to make one school uniform. The parents are expected to either make the uniform themselves, or as what usually happens, take the material to a local seamstress. The cost is paid for by the parents, with a uniform usually costing between 120 and 200 rupees, depending on size.

Typical Sri Lankan school uniforms for girls.

One of our local partners, Prabha, is a school teacher in Irunooruvil, an isolated hamlet some 20 miles west of Batticaloa as the crow flies, but more like 30 miles as the motorcycle drives. He was contacted by Miss Rathika (Rah-TEE-kah) Visualingam, the local seamstress. She provides the sewing labor for two schools; the Irunooruvil school where Prabha teaches, and the nearby Pavatkodichchenai school. All told, there are around 400 students. The problem, Miss Rathika explained to Prabha, is that her old sewing machine, which she inherited from her mother, is now irrevocably dead; no amount of fixing and fiddling will do any good anymore and school uniform time was about to start. Could Prabha help her find a new machine? Prabha immediately contacted ABDF.org.

Miss Rathika and her new sewing machine!

ABDF.org felt that providing Miss Rathika with a new sewing machine would not only help her and her family, but would prevent all those parents from having to locate someone else with a machine in an area that has no real villages but is populated by scattered farmsteads. However, ABDF.org prefers that recipients donate something towards their own project; we feel it instills the recipients with a sense of ownership.

So ABDF.org struck a deal with Miss Rathika. If we provide her with a sewing machine, she must sew all the students’ uniforms for the upcoming school year for half price. After that she will charge her usual price; in addition she may charge what she will for non-uniform work. The parents have been notified of this new temporary price, and Prabha will follow-up to make sure the deal is stuck to.

Indispensible to Miss Rathika’s livelihood.

ABDF.org is quite happy with this arrangement; we have helped a young micro-entrepreneur keep her business running, and we have saved 400 families an average of 80 rupees each; for a total savings of 32,000 rupees, or about $288 US. That’s just under the cost of the sewing machine!

Miss Rathika received her new sewing machine on April 9th, 2009. Unfortunately, as the Urunooruvil area is politically unsettled, the security situation did not allow for the Program Director to deliver the machine to her; rather she had to come to Batticaloa to pick it up. She was, however, quite delighted to come to Batticaloa, a rare treat for someone who lives so distant. A trishaw was hired to bring Miss Rathika, her aunty, and the new machine back to Pavatkodichchenai safely.

Packed up and ready to head home!