Our vocational training program empowers destitute Sri Lankan women with hope and the skills needed to start a business and climb out of their despair.

What is the need?

The December 2004 tsunami destroyed many people's homes and livelihood in the eastern Sri Lankan village of Thiraimadu, a Hindu community of about 5,000 people.

Hardest hit were the many refugee women and children who migrated to this town after the tsunami. Many of the women have been abandoned, orphaned or widowed, and in a severe economic plight.

Their lack of education or marketable skills leaves them very vulnerable with limited ways to support themselves and their children.

How do we help?

In addition to building many new homes for tsunami victims in this area, Samaritan's Purse has launched a vocational training centre to teach these women professional sewing skills so they can start their own home-based business.

· Women like this need more than money - they need hope.

· Our first goal is to provide these women with an activity that will occupy their time so their sole focus is not upon their loss and sense of hopelessness.
· We provide the in-depth training, sewing machines and sewing kits needed to empower women to begin and sustain a lifelong livelihood. Our four-month course gives personalised attention to help those women who struggle with literacy.
· We teach them to sew and tailor high-quality women's and girl's blouses and dresses, school uniforms, plus embroidered items that can be sold in the marketplace.
· We provide business training to help ensure their business is sustainable, and help them market what they make to help their business grow.

· We will also help these women socially and emotionally, by establishing a sense of community in an area that has been relationally fractured.

How it's changing lives:

Prior to our involvement with these needy women, they had no source of income and no marketable skills. Our training significantly improves their condition.
Samaritan's Purse has been involved in other sewing projects like this one, and has seen many lives changed as a result.

We demonstrate the loving care of Christ through our field officers, who establish significant relationships with the students by visiting them throughout their training period and monitoring their progress.

Projects like this also benefit others in the community. One of the needy women in this village, a 27-year old mother of three abandoned by her husband, has volunteered the use of her house for the sewing project. Samaritan's Purse will provide her with rent money, which will help this woman make some needed repairs to her tsunami-affected home.