Rosen Hotel Franchise – KVT Sewing Group

Posted on July 27, 2008 by Steve

The first anniversary of our sewing group was marked by the opening of a small franchise in the shop of the area’s best hotel – the Rosen Renaissance in Kataragamama. Getting this off the ground was largely thanks to our project officer, Mr Teddy, who knew the hotel owner from his days working there as a safari jeep driver for tourists.

The owner said he was keen to give something back to the local community and very kindly let us set up a stand in the shop where we are now selling bags, hanging murals and table cloths.

Pictured right, I am modeling the latest line in elephant bags next to our good friend the smiley priest.

 

CS Learning and Development Centre

Posted on July 5, 2008 by Jackie

Credit Suisse sent over its Indian Chief Operating Officer, Shekar Ganesh for the opening ceremony of the special needs centre at Debarawewa President’s Primary College in late June. Pictured right, he is shown handing a prize to Oshini Kawshalya who won the competition to design the invitation to the opening ceremony.

The special needs classroom teaches about 30 children with a range of disabilities ranging from autism to Down’s syndrome, while the classroom for deaf children has about nine children.

As part of the project, we took all the deaf children to a specialist centre near Galle to get their heading tested. As a result of this we were able to swap their primitive hearing aids, which looked more like MP3 players, in favour of modern digital hearing aids that could be wrapped round their ears.

We hoped this meant that some of the children could be taught how to speak as they had previously been using only sign language. To boost the chances of this happening, we had a long mirror installed in the classroom so they could see themselves articulating sounds.

We also purchased a special hearing set in England, which enables the teacher to talk through a microphone to receptors the children wear around their necks.