Protect mental health, keep our centres open!

Vanakum, Ayubowan and Hello!

I hope you are keeping well! 

I’m getting in touch today with a little update on our ‘Protect mental health, keep our centres open’ fundraising campaign.

Improving mental health has always been at the core of our Tea Leaf educational centres. Sri Lanka has the highest suicide rate in South Asia and the young people from tea estate communities are one of the most at-risk groups in the country. 

We started this campaign during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in August 2021, and we asked you to help us keep our centres open, because our project can help save lives. Since then a devastating economic crisis has increased financial hardship even further, and impacted the mental health of our students who were already struggling. 

Thanks to your support so far this campaign has raised $51,211 USD, which has been fed back into our centres so we can continue to provide critical emotional and mental health resources and support for our students as they study their Diploma, and get employment ready. 

Our Tea Leaf Trust co-founder Tim Pare just got back from Sri Lanka and wanted to share these updates with you: 

• The tea estate communities are suffering hugely as the cost of living continues to spiral. There are stories of families feeding their kids one meal a day and then hot water for the other two meals. The emergency hardship fund is being used to protect our students from having to drop out from school because of financial hardship. 
• Our Tea Leaf educational centres are in demand so we’re adding two new tea estate centres in 2023. We secured new long term rentals while I was there and started recruiting for our main leadership positions in these centres. Tea Leaf centres are community led, so we only recruit from our alumni. We’ve received over 50 applications already, as well as many from outside of our organisation. 
• I was really happy to be in Sri Lanka for our annual Speech Competition, where the students practice their English and increase their confidence by presenting their ideas to an audience. 
• There have been immediate signs of improvement for many since my last visit in July. The queues at Petrol Sheds have vanished as the QR Code system has kicked in and worked.. although fuel rationing still exists (20L per car per week, 4L per three wheeler) as does corruption. Most people can bribe the pump attendants with Rs 500 not to scan their QR code if they have enough money. Rs 500 is half a daily wage for a tea picker but manageable for many. 
• There are signs that tourism is returning, although I only saw a few tourists in Nuwara Eliya and none in Maskeliya. The currency rate makes Sri Lanka hugely affordable at present, so if you can visit please do. 

An educated young person has an incredible ripple effect on the rest of the tea estate community! Graduates gain employment off the tea estates, double their income, help to lift their family out of financial hardship and start working towards becoming leaders in their communities to drive positive change. This is especially important now as Sri Lanka struggles with record high inflation and shortages of basic necessities. 

Education gives the young people on the tea estates hope - we are so grateful for your support! 

With very best wishes, 

Anusha on behalf of Tea Leaf Trust

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Dear All,

I have just come back from three weeks in the tea estates of Sri Lanka. The country is in political and economic turmoil. The most stark example of how this plays out for the poorest communities is that of a good old egg.

Now, when I was living in SL in 2019, one egg cost about Rs 12 /-. Now it costs around Rs 50 /-. More than this though, most of the eggs I ate within the tea estate areas had no yolk... eggs look weird without yolks, but the reason is that the normal chicken food is now too expensive and the cheap version does not have enough protein for the chickens to produce normal eggs. So the impact on the poor is that they pay around 4 x the price for their egg, but it does not have the health value that it should have, meaning their families have less money and still don't get the nourishment they need.

In my 15-year relationship with the country, I have never known life be as tough as it is in Sri Lanka right now. Hope is more important than ever... and that is what our centres bring, thank you for your support and kindness.

According to the stats and focus groups, 16 out of 20 students in our classrooms will live with an alcoholic, 17 out of 20 will witness or experience domestic violence and young people from the tea estates are some of the most likely in the country to commit suicide. 95% of our students live off less than $1 a day. In 'normal' times, we have comparable rates of attendance to colleges in the UK (over 90%) despite 15% of our students travelling more than 6 hours a day to access our programme. Our usual drop-out rate is less than 7%, miraculous compared to government training programmes. 

What's the special ingredient? Well, kindness and optimism are pretty important, but hope is the one. Hope and knowledge that what they are learning is relevant to both their professional and personal lives, their skills and their emotional health and resilience. We replace the poverty of hope, with the feeling that they can build successful lives and lift their families out of extreme poverty.

This year, with the economic crisis leading to spiralling costs, it is tougher than it ever has been and we want to support each of our students with a small stipend each month to allow them to attend as well as eat. If you can, please sponsor a student until Dec 2022: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/support-a-student-strengthen-a-community/

Meet Ramesh (photo attached), one of our graduates... now one of our Finance Officers and full of hope. Sorry about the poor quality photo, but what a smile!

Thanks again,

Tim

Links:

• Support a Student, Strengthen a Community