White boards for a school in need; for a long time now the teachers in a temple school in the village of Mawathagama conducted classes where around 250 children had to learn using 2 black boards only! The classes had to take turns with one class having to wait till another class had finished with the board. Having no choice teachers had to read the lessons out aloud and hope the students got it right. That may be possible with 1+2=3, but when it gets more complex it becomes a very difficult task severely hampering the education of the children. The children who attend this school come from all parts of the country. Some children don’t have any parents where ...

New boots and gloves for garbage collectors in Sri Lanka; having seen, by chance, that the garbage collection man was breaking the garbage bags in the truck by bare feet with only a carrier bag covering his feet, Amal (L.E.O. Staff) decided to buy a pair of boots for the garbage man. Upon inquiring we found out that they did not have boots, gloves ...

End March 2011 LEO Project Foundation was able to help fund a fantastic day trip for physically disabled youths from our partner project Hellabeem in Sri Lanka. It is difficult for these youths to travel round their own country as they need special transport and support. We are delighted to contribute to a day out in Colombo that enabled these young people to see parts of their own capital city that would otherwise have been inaccessible to them. On the trip they went to the harbour and were able to board a ship that has been turned into a library - ...

Hellabeem, a school for physically disabled youth, recently replaced all their old Pentium 3 computers with computers donated via LEO. We gave them a grand total of 40 computers. Half of these will be used to teach and the other half is to be given to students that complete their education and leave the school to start their own business. From Jan at Hellabeem: Hereby the very first images of the computers and our students using them. We’re almost done replacing the computers in our main classroom, but there are still more units to be deployed. The computers are working like a charm. A bit of research ...

What happened to the donated computers? The LEO team decided to set up a computer class at the children’s home in Kotte. The old computer room was in shambles and in total disarray and had not been used for years. We cleaned up the computer room, got rid of the broken machines and replaced them with working machines donated by LEO and sponsors CIMA Global, Ensior, Amaris IT and individual donations. Software was installed with the help of one of our volunteers, Wei. Simon (LEO staff member) and Wei got the machines ...

After a while of praying in darkness the children at Vajira home had their prayer area lit up by bulbs representing the colours of the Buddhist flag bulbs. The LEO team together with the help of the children at Vajira home cleaned up the outdoor prayer area and placed the bulbs for each Buddha. It is said in Buddhism that 28 Buddha’s arrived at various times before the present Buddha and paying your respects to all these Buddha’s is a vital part of prayer time. ...

Happy faces at the orphanage in Colombo! Donated toys, all the way from the Netherlands, arrived in the hands of these happy orphans after a long journey by air and sea. First they travelled by plane from Amsterdam to London as part of my regular luggage. Then they stayed in London awaiting collection by the shipping company. Once collected they went on a 4 week journey by sea to Sri Lanka. Total transport costs: £5.- Most orphans in Sri Lanka have little ...

Major work is being carried out at the Kumari preschool these days. Since the preschool received a microloan from LEO mid December the school has been undergoing a serious transformation. The images on this page were taken at the beginning of this week and give a great indication of the change taking place. Unfortunately prices hiked up since the first estimates to renovate the preschool were given. It works out that an additional £200.- is required to finish the work. Hence we at LEO keep on trying to raise the funds. Now you might have noticed that the wording ‘microloan’ ...

Although we never really think of it in matters of success, we need to recognise that shipping goods to Sri Lanka is in itself worthy of a success story. When we ship things to Sri Lanka we are never certain if and how it arrives. We neither know if and how much the customs will charge to realize our goods. Our usual shipment consists of stamps and some hard to get by goods. However, this shipment actually contains a server computer, hard drives, children toys and stamps. The server has been donated to us by Joost Buelens whom will be volunteering at ...

Imagine you are a child again. Every day you have to walk to school and the only road leading there is an old dirt road of sand and stones. Now imagine you are walking that same road bare foot. This is exactly what most of the children at a very poor village school called ‘Sumanasara’ faced on a daily basis ...