Dear friends, colleagues, supporters, and collaborative partners,

Greetings to you, your families, loved ones, and colleagues from all of us at VACD.

Senura Engineering staff visit to our Bandarawela Centre: 

Staff from Senura Civil Engineering (Pvt.) Ltd, (https://www.facebook.com/SenuraCE/) stationed in Bandarawela paid our Bandarawela centre a most welcome and delightful visit on Thursday, 222nd February to provide our children with food, school bags and stationery that was most gratefully received by the children. “Thank you – Senura Civil Engineering”. Ongoing local community support is critical for the long-term sustainability and success of our mission. 

A Big “Thank you” to the Sellahewa Family from Bandarawela:

Our sincere thanks to Mr. Rohitha, Mrs. Renuka and Ms. Malmee Sellahewa from Bandarawela who donated lunch to our Bandarawela centre children. The Sellahewa family have been and continue to be strong advocates and supporters of our mission. 

Inspiring news from Ambagasdowa:

Our VACD Sri Lanka Secretary and staff at our Ambagasdowa centre took the initiative to encourage families attending our centre to sell their excess garden produce from their home gardens to the public once a month at a weekend vegetable market held at the centre grounds. 

This has been a very successful initiative that enabled our VACD families to improve their household incomes while our children learned real-life basic skills to set up tables, sell products, handle money, etc., under the supervision of parents and staff. Our Ambagasdowa centre is sponsored by Teardrop Hotels – (https://www.teardrop-hotels.com/).  

VACD Ambagasdowa centre is being relocated:

Our Ambagasdowa centre is being relocated to more suitable premises sometime in April. This gives us added opportunities to provide additional services to our children and their parents in a more advantageously located and secure environment. It was heartening to see parents of our children devote their time and skills at a “working bee” to prepare the premises and the surrounding area for the move.

A very big heartfelt “Thank you” to Multilac Paints – Sri Lanka 

Thank you, to our VACD Australia Director – Mr. Hemraj Fernando who once again negotiated with Multilac Paints Sri Lanka (https://www.multilac.com/) and arranged for paints and all other material required to paint our Ambagasdowa and Bandarawela centres, to be sold to us at a significant discount. Multilac have been supporting our mission for many years – Thank you Multilac for your continued generosity and support.

Regular updates on our VACD Facebook Page:

Ms Aloyna (Pinky) Taylor, VACD’s Head of Digital Communication, posts regular news and updates on a range of VACD activities on our Facebook page. I would encourage you to please follow us on https://www.facebook.com/vacdlk for timely news about our mission. Please also support us by following, liking, commenting, and sharing VACD posts with your family, friends, loved ones, colleagues etc. so that your help will enable us, via the algorithms built into this electronic social networking & communication platform, to extend our outreach to many more who, like you, share in our vision and mission for disabled children in Sri Lanka. Thank you. 

Multiple donation options to support our mission – Thank you:

The following hyperlink will enable you to find all donation options that are available to you on our webpage: https://www.vacd.org.au/donate/

Multicurrency Benevity Causes Portal for International Donations:

International donors who wish to support our mission can do so through the Benevity Causes portal via the hyperlink below for all your multi-currency donation options:

https://mygoodness.benevity.org/community/search?query=vacd&country=036

Children with disabilities and their families in the region…

A big “Thank You” to all of you…

Our journey is bound to be long and challenging. The official and unofficial number of children and their families who need our love, support, compassion, and care are sizeable and increasing steadily. We look forward to your continued generosity, active support for our undertaking and you being partners with us in this most fulfilling and worthwhile 12+ year journey that we traverse together.

Please visit us at: https://www.vacd.org.au/  and reach out to us at: fstephen@bigpond.net.au should you choose to support our mission. Please share this newsletter with your network so that together we certainly can make a difference in the lives of children with disabilities, one by one!!!

Many thanks, best wishes, and warmest regards…. Felix

Felix Stephen

Chairman of the Board of Directors – VACD Ltd. Sydney – Australia – https://www.vacd.org.au/

Member of the Advisory Board – VACD Sri Lanka

Member of the Advisory Board – Two Leaves Foundation Sri Lanka

Senior Associate – Cognoscenti Group – Sydney – Australia- http://www.cognoscenti.global/ 

Member of Investment Committee – Arrive Wealth Management – Brisbane – Australia – https://www.arrivewealthmanagement.com.au/