Mano Alles told us that during her walks around the mountain she has gotten to know the local families. She has discovered that there is a stressing need amongst the women to find jobs. 

Here ,as in rest of rural Sri Lanka, the women stays at home taking care of children and elderly, cooks, cleans ect. making it hard for them to get a job because they need to pick up their children at school and so on. Therefore it is traditionally the man of the household that bring in the revenue for the family. With the husband’s income the family needs to cover not only the basic needs such as food, housing, cloths but also for their children’s school material which is all the writing books, uniforms, pencils ect. In the end, with the small income from the husband, these families are really struggling to sustain their livelihood. To make things further complicated there is also a problem in some families of the husband drinks which makes the living situation even harder. 

This is the case of the women that we were able to meet today, and therefore this Lady contacted Sandra (Founder of Selyn) to come and talk to the women and see what could be done. 

 

 

Selyn’s approach enables these women to work in their homes and provides them with an opportunity to earn an income that they otherwise would never have the possibility to get. This empowers the women and provides economic support for the family helping them to lift their living situation and promotes the health of their children as well. 

Here you see the women showing their work for Sandra.

 

 

Today, was a meeting with these women from the rural areas of Kandy. Discussing future possibilities to empower them and provide them with an alternative way of revenue for them to meet their challenges. The effects from empowering women is recognised by research and it has a comprehensive impact for the whole family as well as the community and society as a whole. But I will not elaborate further on the impacts of empowering women because then this text would become very long. 

 

 

It was interesting to see how Selyn reaches out to support women and provide them with the opportunity to develop into strong individuals that are further given the possibility to provide for their families through the means of employment. 

 

I will end this blogpost with a picture of me and Sandra with the beautiful Bible Rock in the background.