History of the Trust
In 1997, utilising her community-based experience in the country, Juliet Brown travelled to Sri Lanka in order
to establish a new charity working with the children of Sri Lanka. The vision was to establish a charity that
would be different from the large aid organisations, where the aim was to reach children, families and
communities that would otherwise be unable to gain assistance.
Having developed the concept and gained support from the authorities and other aid agencies working in Sri
Lanka, Juliet returned to the UK to register a charity and begin building the UK organisation. She set up a
board of Trustees and in February1998 the charity was officially registered as Shining Life Children’s Trust.
To oversee Shining Life Children’s Trust’s work in Sri Lanka we employ a volunteer Field Director. Our first
Field Director travelled to Sri Lanka in August 1998. For this position we chose someone who had already
worked as a volunteer in Sri Lanka. His knowledge of Sri Lanka soon earned him the respect of others
working in the field and he quickly built a network of high-level contacts within government organisations and
other aid agencies. Juliet travelled again to Sri Lanka and together they developed a full proposal for how
the newly formed charity should work.
In April 1999 the Trustees agreed this proposal. The central concept to the proposal was that Shining Life
Children’s Trust should always be working to ensure sustainability rather than dependency. To this end it
was planned that we should work on a series of projects, each project would be run in partnership with a
local Sri Lankan organisation for a three year period. The three year time period would enable us to
provide funding and professional input to help the local organisation and the community develop skills and
carry on the project work without international support after three years. Also crucial to ensuring
sustainability would be the involvement of community members in all aspects of the project from planning
what would most benefit them in their everyday lives to evaluating the success of the project. Poverty has
multiple causes and results in a wide range of problems; to this end each project would be multifaceted,
working to tackle all areas identified as needing support by the community. Finally the strengths of Shining
Life Children’s Trust lay in the newness of the organisation and succinctly defined aims. It was therefore
agreed that the projects we would support should be new, small and self-contained projects that would not
attract funding from larger organisations. These five aspects continue to direct and define the work of
Shining Life Children's Trust:
-Partnership working
-Defined period of support
-Community involvement at all stages
-Multifaceted approach
-Small communities
Shining Life Children's Trust has now worked with six different communities facilitating a wide range of
projects. Our first two projects began in 2000.
The first was in Matale, central Sri Lanka, providing home-based child care and nursery education to the
pre- school children of a scattered rural community. The partner, SITHUWAMA, was well established and so
we were able to learn from them as well as them from us. The second project was in Moratuwa, a coastal
shantytown. Here, the local community wanted to work with teenage mothers and equip them with skills,
education and support to build a brighter future.
Following the completion of these projects Shining Life Children’s Trust moved on to identify two more
communities that we could assist. Our third project was again in Moratuwa working with a shantytown
community to improve child nutrition, living conditions and earning potential of the community members. The
fourth was in Kalpityia, North West Sri Lanka, working with several, mainly Muslim, villages to provide pre-
school education and micro-lending schemes.
Shining Life Children's Trust Field Director Raja Dasgupta, was working well with our partners in assisting
these communities to improve their lives when disaster struck on December 26th 2004. The Tsunami, as
has been well documented, had a devastating impact on many communities within Sri Lanka and as a result
created even more need for the type of work Shining Life Children's Trust undertakes. Raja fulfilled a very
valuable role immediately after the Tsunami in facilitating aid distribution and then identified a particular
fishing community in Telwatta that really needed our help. For the first time Shining Life Children's Trust
grew to support three communities simultaneously.
Most recently we have been working with another community in the central highlands area home to many tea
plantations. Working with a team of teachers from the local school we are helping them to construct a
community play area.
Since that time four Field Directors have worked for the Trust, each bringing their unique skills to the
organisation and helping to develop and nurture our projects with a diverse range of Sri Lankan
communities.
As is evident Shining Life Children’s Trust is continually developing. Back in the UK, the Trust is run by a
dedicated group of six Trustees. Our main aim is to raise funds in order to support the work in Sri Lanka.
The small size and uniqueness of the Trust means that those who support our work feel personally
involved.
Looking to the future we will continue to identify and partner with vulnerable communities with whom Shining
Life Children’s Trust can undertake valuable work .However, we do not want to lose site of the many
benefits of being a small organisation; our intention is therefore to continue to undertake comprehensive
projects with just a few communities at any one time.
