AANMEEGA ARAKADDALAI
ஆன்மீக அறக்கட்டளை
ආන්මීග අරකඩ්ඩලෙයි

ABOUT THE AANMEEGA ARAKADDALAI

 

The Aanmeega Arakaddalai was a foundation started in March of 2019 at the Valakkamparai Amman temple in Tholpuram, Northern Province, Sri Lanka. At the time, the aim was to help families throughout the Northern Province to combat a growing crisis with drug addiction and alcoholism among youth by sponsoring children to be able to attend school and providing transportation to school for children living in remote areas. Since this time, the people of northern and eastern Sri Lanka have faced significant hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, significant flooding in these parts of the country in 2020 and 2021, and the economic crisis beginning in 2022. These major setbacks to the population in these parts of Sri Lanka have necessitated a widespread charitable effort to address barriers to education, healthcare, and supporting livelihoods for these people.

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The Aanmeega Arakaddalai have helped address this need with the foundation of more than 30 arakaddalai in different parts of Sri Lanka. During the COVID-19 pandemic and following flooding in 2020 and 2021, several arakaddalai assembled dry food parcels to donate to needy families in their respective regions, and more than 10,000 families were able to receive food parcels as a result of this effort. In addition, to help families become more self-sufficient in the face of continued economic hardship, tens of thousands of coconut seedlings and vegetable seed packages were distributed to families over the last four years, as well as dozens of chicken coops, cows, goats, and sewing machines that families can use to make clothing for themselves and to sell to others to support their livelihood.

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Due to the ongoing economic crisis that has afflicted the country since 2022, poor families have been forced to pay an inordinate amount of money for life-saving medications at outside pharmacies, as the government hospitals are unable to provide them. In addition, impoverished parents have been struggling to provide essential supplies for their children to use in school. The Aanmeega Arakaddalai have been able to help several base hospitals within the Jaffna Peninsula by supplying essential medications and dental supplies to address the growing health crisis. We have also been able to provide school supplies to nearly 500 children in the peninsula to help them in their education, as well as providing several laptop computers to university students that they would need for their higher education.