On Sunday evening, a group of socialites gathered at Sandesh Reddy’s Social restaurant to dine for a cause. The Asthtva Foundation organised a fundraising dinner, offering Sri Lankan cuisine, to support the Organization for Eelam Refugees and Rehabilitation (OfERR) in running day care centres for children between the age group of two and five years.
OfERR, which was founded in 1984, runs 87 day care centres for refugees in 23 districts in Tamil Nadu. After the 2004 tsunami, the NGO extended its work to include Sri Lankan Tamil tsunami victims. The day care centre programme of the NGO is currently facing a scarcity of funds, says Mayuran, a volunteer at the NGO. The Asthtva Foundation stepped in to revive the programme, which has been providing education, nutrition and health support to marginalised children from the refugee camps. Each day care centre has a caretaker and a nursery teacher who are volunteers and not paid employees.
“It costs around `1,500 per month to run each centre and hence we hosted this Sri Lankan dinner where participants could enjoy a meal and have the satisfaction of helping underprivileged children,” says Poongkothai Chandrahasan, one of the founders of Asthtva Foundation. “We want to get youngsters and privileged people in the city to get involved and contribute to the welfare of the less fortunate,” she adds.
The guests had a taste of authentic Sri Lankan cuisine as some of the refugees from the camps were there at the restaurant to serve as sous chefs.