Give Light Home

Give Light Home

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Give Light Home

A home for up to 80 children who have lost their parents, in Athulugama, Sri Lanka.

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Why it exists

The 2004 tsunami took thousands of lives in Sri Lanka and left many children orphaned.

A.A.M. Marleen was a lawyer and Sri Lanka's ambassador to Saudi Arabia. After he died in 2009, his family and friends set up a foundation in his name to carry on his work for people in need. This is the plan they drew up for a home.

The first stone

Sri Lanka's Prime Minister laid the foundation stone on 21 March 2011. A local sheikh and the chief priest of the Buddhist temple at Galtude both spoke that day, asking Muslims and Buddhists in the village to work on it together.

Building took two years.

Opening day

The home opened on 31 March 2013. Around 600 people came, the Prime Minister among them, along with families from the village.

Visitors step into a lobby with seating, meant to feel like the front room of a house.

The entrance of Give Light Home on opening day
Opening day, 31 March 2013.

Upstairs

Ten of the bedrooms are up here, with a library and computer room, and a common room where the children play games and watch television.

Three classrooms at the front hold the foundation's courses for adults from the village, in computers, sewing, plumbing and phone repair.

Downstairs

The children eat together in the dining hall, next to the kitchen. Ten more bedrooms run along the corridor behind.

At the front is the free IMANA Medical & Dental Clinic, open to anyone in Athulugama. More than 160 people queued on its first day, in September 2013.

Twenty bedrooms

Each bedroom sleeps four children in two bunk beds.

The foundation's team visits families in towns across Sri Lanka and chooses the children who need a home most. Once a child arrives, this is their home until they are ready to stand on their own.

Who looks after them

A house mother and father live in their own apartment, joined on to the home, and look after the children day to day.

The foundation is run by volunteers, so very little of each donation goes on administration.

Room to play

Behind the dining hall is a large playground. Past it is the garden, where the children are to grow their own fruit and vegetables.

Give light

The foundation explains the name in one line: "In their times of darkness, we provide them with light."

The home runs on donations. Every gift helps pay for a child's food, schooling and a safe place to sleep.