Flagship Projects

 

RCCM together with the Rotary Club of Newton (USA) and Gift of Life International (USA & Sri Lanka) came together to provide lifesaving heart surgeries for 50 Sri Lankan children, whose families couldn’t afford the substantial cost involved. The bulk of the funding was secured through a Rotary Global Grant from the Rotary Foundation, while several individual donors also contributed.

In Sri Lanka, over 3,000 children are born every year with congenital heart disease. The government funded Lady Ridgeway Hospital has the capacity to carry out around 1,600 surgeries a year. As this capacity is well short of the demand, the excess patients are wait listed until such time they can be operated. The prolonged wait can cause further damage or lead to more complications to the child.

 

Due to the backlog of patients awaiting surgery at LRH, Rotary and Gift of Life came together to help reduce the waiting list by offering surgery to 54 children with congenital heart decease, by local healthcare professionals at three private hospitals - Nawaloka Hospital, Lanka Hospital and Asiri Hospital. All 54 surgeries were completed successfully during 2020 and 2021. RCCM would like to extend this project and offer a further 54 children the same chance at life.

 

 

 

 

RCCM hosts an annual sports meet for the differently abled child community of Sri Lanka. It is a full day competition, with over 1,000 contestants participating in a wide range of track and field events.

 

The meet is professionally conducted by a panel of accredited track and field referees. Medals are awarded to the winners and the first and second runners up. RCCM has been hosting the meet for over 20 years and it is now an eagerly awaited highlight in the calendar of the child community with mental and/or physical challenges. It is more than just a sports meet. It is a day when we bring fun and laughter to the lives of these children, who are less fortunate than us.

 

 

 

 

A project to lay the foundation for a decent society by inculcating sound values and ethics in young children through a collection of animated songs on video. The songs are in Sinhala and Tamil, the vernacular languages of Sri Lanka. They have been composed and directed by Rukshan Perera, a member of our Club.

 

The animated songs are distributed free of charge to pre -schools and junior schools. The video clips of the songs are also available for free viewing and download on a dedicated website (www.littlemindsstrongvalues.com) as well as on YouTube and Facebook. Furthermore, several national TV channels regularly telecast the animated videos. The expectation is that young children will watch the videos of these songs and absorb the positive messages that they contain.

 

To popularize the songs among as many children as possible for a greater impact, a competition for children to sing and perform skits of a song from the collection, has been organized. Contestants compete for monthly and annual awards for best performance under solo, and group categories for 3 different age groups. The monthly competition is through uploaded videos of the performances. The best of the monthly winners are then selected for the grand finals, where the finalists have to perform live in front of a panel of judges and an appreciative audience to win the overall annual awards. We hope to air the competition on TV as well as on social media.