ADOPTIE SRI LANKA BELGIUM VZW

It was 1976 when I went to Sri Lanka for the first time as a tour guide with a group of tourists. This beautiful exotic country was in and the following years we repeated the program.

During the tour in 1985, one of my fellow travelers noticed that almost no one here wore glasses. This was the real beginning of it all.

When we arrived in Colombo afterwards, we asked our travel agent for more information about this. Weren't there more people here with abnormalities or wear on their eyes? "Many people can't buy glasses," he told us. "First of all, there are few ophthalmologists and people have to come to the capital for that. The trip and the doctor cost money and then there is the price of the glasses themselves. For most people that is not possible!". "But," the director of the travel agency continued, "I am the chairman of the Lions Club and every year, with the help of ophthalmologists and opticians, we bring old glasses free of charge to needy people who need them. Can you collect glasses in Belgium?" That appealed to me.

Once back in our country I started with it. The slogan “Glasses for Dillen” was soon seen in schools, town halls, nursing homes and supermarkets. The result exceeded all expectations. The next time I went to Sri Lanka with a few suitcases full of discarded glasses. And they all ended up and until today we brought more than 20,000 glasses to Sri Lanka!

After this gratifying success, I was also offered the opportunity to participate in the Sri Lankan government's Sevana Sarana Foster Parents Scheme by financially adopting underprivileged children. I was hoping for a hundred, at most two hundred adoptions. But this initiative also took off like never before and at the moment we count more than 2,000 children who have been financially adopted by our members.

Some adoptive parents accompanied me on the next trip to Sri Lanka and visited their child. This took us a step further. “My child lives in a hut. I want to build a house for that family”, some decided almost in tears. A house cost 1,000 USD or 35,000 old BEF (due to the increase in the price of building materials this is now twice as much).
That is why in 1989, together with some motivated volunteers, here and in Sri Lanka, I started a structured organization to send all the funds safely and in a controlled manner to the appropriate account in Sri Lanka. The non-profit association “Adoption Sri Lanka” was baptized.

Now a world full of opportunities opened up to help people. Schools, orphanages, hospitals, families in need, the sick, … . Numerous friends were open to our ideals and spontaneously made a donation. Thanks to correct bookkeeping, we were given the right by the Minister of Finance to issue a tax certificate. With a series of lectures in schools and for the most diverse associations in all corners of the Flemish country, I reached numerous people. It became like a rolling snowball.

We built dozens of houses, several kindergartens, a playground for disabled children, orphanages, a vocational school for boys and one for girls.

Water pipes were laid. We helped old and sick people, provided scholarships for young people. Wheelchairs, hospital beds, medicines, all kinds of medical equipment for hospitals ... everything went to work. In the meantime, we also helped in other areas: a Braille clock for a blind person, two heart operations, a kidney operation, an operation on the burned legs of a man, food parcels for very poor families. Our help currently extends over the entire island and goes to various forms of support.

We hereby thank all those who in one way or another have contributed to the success of our association Adoptie Sri Lanka vzw by raising funds and materials. They may not realize what we all mean to so many in Sri Lanka, thanks to donations, direct and indirect, of more than 1,350,000 euros (approx. 200 million rupees)

And… we are still looking for new benefactors and volunteers who feel called to help us with this.

Gaston DILLEN (1933-2010)
honorary chairman
of Adoption Sri Lanka vzw