This campaign has now closed
Tea Leaf Trust centres offer free education and vocational training for youth in Sri Lankan tea estate communities so they can learn English, become employment ready, learn skills to increase emotional resilience and become ethical leaders in their communities to drive positive change from within.
Categories
Beneficiaries
Situation
British & Sri Lankan rule has deliberately ensured tea estate communities remain an uneducated, dependent workforce. The poverty of hope leads to high levels of alcoholism & substance abuse, domestic & sexual violence, resulting in high levels of self-harm & suicide. Poor educational infrastructure & societal discrimination means young people struggle to break this cycle of exploitation, find alternative work & lift their families out of extreme poverty. 100% of students live off < $1 a day.
Solution
Our free, full-time diploma course is our pride and joy, helping the 18 to 26-year-old children of the tea estates of Sri Lanka. The course is open to anyone who is unemployed and living in the estates or towns of the tea plantation area. 47 of our 50 staff are graduates of the main diploma and 35 of our teachers live on tea estates. This model of young people teaching young people has been highly effective at supporting into employment and FE as well as dramatically reducing suicide rates.
