中斯友好发展

July 10, 2022 — a country few Chinese people had heard of suddenly trended on Weibo. Sri Lanka, the "Pearl of the Indian Ocean," was in the grip of its worst economic crisis in history: no fuel, no cooking gas, soaring prices, daily blackouts, and ordinary families unable to afford food.

Few people know that Sri Lanka is the world's largest cornea donor nation — with 1.3 million of its 20 million people registered as donors. Even in its darkest hour, Sri Lanka had given so much to the world. We wanted to give something back.

China-Sri Lanka Friendly Development Association was founded by four Chinese mothers living in Sri Lanka. On July 13 — Poya Day — we arrived early at Kelaniya Temple, one of Sri Lanka's most sacred Buddhist sites, and distributed 550 traditional Sri Lankan meal packages to the elderly, women, and children who had come to pray despite the fuel shortage.

The giving of meal packages on every Poya Day has continued since, and the association went on to partner with Chinese charities and local government to expand its reach island-wide.

After our founding article was published on July 15, messages of support poured in from Buddhist communities and Chinese friends around the world. Within two days, tens of thousands of yuan in donations had arrived.

Four days, 1,000 families

July 16 — donations arrive. July 17 — emergency plan drawn up to distribute 1,000 bags of 5kg rice. July 18 — working with local government, we go door-to-door to verify the welfare register and confirm the recipient list. July 19 — we contact local rice wholesalers and prepare distribution tickets overnight.

Then, on the evening of July 19, the Sri Lankan government declared a national state of emergency. Fuel was nearly exhausted. Transport was paralysed. Should we proceed?

July 20, early morning — our team and volunteers loaded a truck with 1,000 bags of rice and drove to the Madiwela, Pannipitiya and Arrawala districts, where 1,000 families were waiting. Despite the chaos, the local community maintained their characteristic politeness and order throughout. Local media were on hand to report the event.

"Fast, accurate, efficient" became the guiding principle we have upheld in all our charitable work ever since.

July 2022 was historic for Sri Lanka — the worst economic crisis in the country's history, the first nation to go bankrupt in the post-COVID era, a president who fled, and skyrocketing prices. The hardest hit were ordinary people with nothing to fall back on.

As our charity work grew, more religious leaders and donors reached out, more volunteers joined. But we kept asking: how do we make the deepest difference?

The five families

From July 21, we used referrals from local contacts to visit 50 of the most vulnerable households, door to door — donating rice, dhal and cooking oil, and documenting each family's real situation carefully.

From August 2022, we committed to monthly deliveries to the five most urgent families: 15kg of rice, 5kg of dhal, and 2 litres of cooking oil — worth approximately 200 RMB — per family, per month, for one year. Our team conducts welfare checks every three months to monitor impact and ensure families are moving toward self-sufficiency.

August 11 — Poya Day & the Tooth Relic Festival

August's Poya Day coincides with Sri Lanka's Esala Perahera — the sacred procession of the Buddha's Tooth Relic in Kandy. Despite the heat and the crisis, the faithful still made their way to Kelaniya Temple. Many other local volunteers joined us spontaneously. We distributed 550 meal packages — and ran out before everyone was served. We resolved to prepare more next time.

August 12 — Nalagiri Monastery Relief Drive

Before dawn, our volunteers drove three hours to a world-renowned Buddhist meditation retreat, where the monastery had organised 1,000 relief packages for impoverished families. We assisted the Venerable Haoyue in registering donors and collecting contributions. In just over 30 hours, over 1 million rupees were raised — providing relief packs to 200 households.

August 27 — Visiting the Five Families

Our volunteers visited each of the five selected vulnerable households, delivering one month's essentials: 20kg of rice, 5kg of dhal, 2 litres of cooking oil, and 2kg of jaggery. The homes ranged from a single earthen room where two children sleep on the floor after their disabled grandfather, to a crumbling tile house shared by a widowed mother and her four daughters — the youngest of whom lit up when she received a set of crayons.

Following our report on these five families, donors immediately came forward offering one-to-one, year-long sponsorships for each household. We remain deeply grateful.

April 5, 2023 — Poya Day — coincided with China's Qingming Festival. Two nations separated by thousands of miles, aligned in spirit on the same day.

Our monthly Poya Day food distribution, which began in July 2022, reached its 10th edition. Over those ten months, Sri Lanka had endured its darkest storms — and was beginning to see the first signs of recovery, with tourism slowly returning.

But recovery is uneven. To meet IMF bailout conditions, the government had cut subsidies and welfare spending, with electricity prices rising over 200%. Those at the bottom of the social ladder remained the most vulnerable — and the most in need of our continued support.

A new partner joins us

Yuanshan Lanka Group (Pvt) Ltd donated 100 bags of rice and joined our volunteers at Kaduwela Temple to distribute rice and meal packages to local impoverished families. Rice donated by Yuanshan went to poor families; meal packages from our individual donors went to elderly and mobility-impaired residents.

We are deeply grateful to Yuanshan Lanka Group for their generosity and partnership in this act of charity.

The first time I walked into a Sri Lankan welfare home for disabled children, I was not prepared for what I saw. A girl with a large head and a skeletal frame curled in a cot ringed with railings; another who peered at us shyly from behind a carer — her features complete but rearranged by fate, like Auggie in Wonder, only without the helmet. When she walked forward and wrapped her thin arms around my leg, every hair on my body stood on end.

These children are less fortunate than Auggie — born without the warmth of a family, abandoned from birth. Sri Lanka has no official government system to care for them. Yet they are also lucky — because countless kind-hearted people have built them another home, where they are fed, clothed, and can live together with love and dignity.

St Martin's Home & Marcsri Home

St Martin's Home in Ja Ela, Colombo, is affiliated with Marcsri Home — a private charitable welfare institution housing disabled children, orphans, and elderly residents, founded by Rev. Father Prasanna Christopher Perera. As numbers grew, the home began building an extension to house abandoned girls over 20 with congenital intellectual disabilities. Then the economic crisis hit. Construction stalled halfway. They had no funds to continue.

Restarting the build

By chance, we learned of their situation. We visited twice, brought in a structural engineer to assess the remaining work, and organised funding — 7,000 RMB from Dingguang Temple, China, and contributions from our broader community of donors.

Rather than a simple lump-sum donation, we chose a more demanding but more accountable approach: purchasing the required construction materials directly and delivering them to the site. On September 16, 2023, the four founding mothers of the association arrived at the reopened construction site together, delivering over 1 million rupees (approximately 22,000+ RMB) worth of materials.

After this building is complete, the association will continue to provide medicines and daily necessities as needed. We will keep doing what we can — building homes for Sri Lanka's "Miracle Girls," and building dreams for charity.