CHARITIES | lankachallenge2015

Supporting our chosen Charities

We need YOU !

**The Hong Kong Loonies are covering all the costs (travel / entry / accomodation / F&B etc) for the Lanka Challenge from their own pockets. Simple. **

---------------------

Here's your opportunity to support two excellent and well-run charities that the Hong Kong Loonies know deliver amazing results on limited resources. With your help we can bolster the coffers and ensure they are each able to contribute further to key disadvantaged groups in Hong Kong and Sri Lanka.

Check-out their summary details below. To support those less fortunate simply either click the charity's logo or link to our donations pages -

https://www.simplygiving.com/hongkongloonies_handsonhongkong

https://www.justgiving.com/hongkongloonies-roomtoread

Founded in 2007, HandsOn Hong Kong is a registered charity mobilizing and empowering our community to meet pressing social needs in Hong Kong through volunteer services. HandsOn Hong Kong fills a gap by getting volunteers to the local causes that so desperately need them and enabling people to give a helping hand to the local community. HandsOn Hong Kong actively recruits, trains, and manages volunteers to participate in volunteer activities benefiting the local community. Each week there are 20+ opportunities for volunteers to assist those in need in our city. In 2014 HandsOn Hong Kong and its volunteers gave 17,500 hours of service to 56 local charities.

Since 2014, the Kowloon Rugby Football Club have been actively supporting the organisation by volunteering time and resources to co-ordinate a series of 'sports' days. Local children with learning and physical difficulties are invited to a rugby themed action-packed and fun day as guests of KRFC.

Read more about this excellent organisation at http://handsonhongkong.org/

A large tropical island just twenty miles off the southern tip of India, Sri Lanka is home to 20 million people. Its palm-fringed beaches and breath-taking beauty belie the challenging history of Sri Lanka. In the 1980's, all-out civil war erupted between the Tamil in the north and east and the Sinhalese majority, which continued until 2009 and resulted in the deaths of more than 60,000 people.

A lack of quality infrastructure, unequal access, and a lack of quality materials have plagued the Sri Lankan education system for years—factors only exacerbated by civil conflict and the tsunami of 2004.Even before the devastating tsunami, in some areas, it is not uncommon for girls to work long hours for low wages instead of attending school—resulting in a literacy gender gap.

Because 45% of Sri Lanka’s population lives on less than US$2 per day, purchasing quality reading material is essentially out of the question for most people. While libraries do exist in some schools, they are typically filled with old, dusty books that have little or no relevance for children, and do not foster imagination

Since 2005, the Room to Read (Sri Lanka) team has focused its efforts on constructing schools, establishing libraries and publishing children’s books to ensure all children have access to the materials they need to complete their education, closing the gender gap in Sri Lanka by launching a Girls’ Education program and launching a Reading and Writing Instruction program to improve the quality of literacy learning in schools.