CHA!

During the summer, myself and 3 of my friends went to the 'consortium of humanitarian agencies' or CHA to do some volunteer work in the summer. As well as developing our communication skills and giving us an opportunuty to work independantly as well as in cooperatively, we had a chance to help establish help lines for people in need.
This involved compiling databases of contact details of people the CHA could recieve sponsorship from in the future. We also had to call each of these contact and confirm all their details. The working hours were 3 times a week from 9 till 2. Although the job was tedious and boring at times, knowing that indirectly, we were helping people in need made it feel worth it. We also got the opportunity to accompany our supervisors to a village about 2 hours away from colombo as they were carrying out a need assesment of the place. This village is one of many that was created for the families of the soldiers who fought in the recent war in sri lanka. Some of the women there had lost their husbands, other's husbands had disabilities and were be physically unable to work. It was a sobering experience and made us all realize that we must all do something to help these people financially as they had their electricity cut off as they havent paid the bill for 2 months. This meant that the computer classes their children were recieving were terminated as the computers could not be used.
One of my goals this term os to keep in contact with the CHA and ask them what the general public could do to help the situation.