Background
All of the four divisions on the estate that Shining Life is working in are managed by the Janatha Estates Development Board (JEDB). A World Bank report that was published in 2007 stated that 'The estate population represents the most significant challenge to poverty reduction in Sri Lanka' and that consumption poverty in the estates rose between 1991 and 2002 while it fell in other parts of the country.
Many factors affect poverty in the tea estate areas, including:
Children in one of the children’s clubs.
- there are limited opportunities for people to move away from the tea estates
- there is limited employment and few opportunities for self-employment
- a low level of education
- low health indicators
- poor housing and sanitation
- alcoholism
- marginalisation of estate residents by mainstream society.
Shining Life’s project with the Hanguraketha Childrens Care Women’s Foundation seeks to address many of these problems.