Sri Lanka: Sponsorship brings insight to blind relatives

from World Vision

A child sponsored through World Vision shares education with her blind mother and aunt.

By Hasanthi Jayamaha, World Vision Sri Lanka, and Rachael Boyer, Web Writer/Editor

Seven-year-old Swarna sits beside her mother, gently takes her hand, and guides her finger down a page of her schoolbook. Her mother beams as she feels every tick mark — correct, correct, correct.

"Amma, see the picture I painted," Swarna says, next guiding her mother's finger across a drawing she made in class.

Smiling, her mother recognizes the shape and says, "It's a swan."
Sight for the blind

"Read to me what you have written in class today," Swarna's mother asks, eager to learn what Swarna has learned.

Swarna lives in Sri Lanka with her mother, her grandmother, and her aunt. Both her mother and aunt are blind. Swarna is their eyes, helping them around the house and guiding them to the well close by for their baths.

Swarna is also their teacher. Their favorite time of day is listening to Swarna read what she learned in school.

"I am not so literate, and it thrills me to hear what she is learning. We are learning with her," says her mother, who was not able to get an education like Swarna when she was young.

'Everything she needs'

A World Vision donor has sponsored Swarna since 2003. The sponsor has connected with Swarna by sending cards and photographs of her family. Swarna especially likes photos of her sponsor's little daughter. "She is very small and very pretty," she says.

Thanks to her sponsor, Swarna is able to receive an education that would otherwise be impossible.

"I would have never been able to send her to school without the support of World Vision," says her mother. "She receives all the books and pencils and everything she needs to continue her studies."

Through Swarna's studies, her entire family is learning and gaining insight, their vision growing every day.