Children’s Emergency Relief International launched a GlobalGiving fund-raising campaign to help foster parents and orphaned adolescents in Sri Lanka start or expand a small business.
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With the help of supporters, CERI is able to empower Sri Lankan foster parents to break the cycle of dependency by establishing successful businesses. (PHOTO/CERI)
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The economic development program is designed to break these families’ cycle of dependency on charitable aid.
GlobalGiving is an international fund-raising network that matches nonprofit organizations with an extensive group of private and corporate givers who want to help charities sustain and grow their work around the world.
Since 2004, CERI’s foster care program has placed 180 Sri Lankan children, or-phaned by a 26-year civil war and the 2004 tsunami, in loving homes. CERI caseworkers assist children with homework, provide basic medical care and life skills training, and organize educationally enriching after-school activities.
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To help indigent foster families gain financial independence, CERI also launched a revolving microloan program that provides start-up capital for Sri Lankan entrepreneurs and artisans.
CERI officials hope the partnership with GlobalGiving will expand the income-gen-erating initiatives to benefit a larger number of CERI-supported foster families in eastern and southern Sri Lanka.
The fundraiser for Sri Lanka is CERI’s second appeal for donations though Global-Giving. Recently, the agency collected $12,000 to provide new winter boots and socks to orphans in Moldova.
For more information on the fund-raising initiative, go to www.globalgiving.org.
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