Educate 33 children with disabilities in Sri Lanka

GlobalGiving report July 2023

As always, we at E.A.S.E. Foundation are appreciative of the support we have received for many years from GlobalGiving.  Your support helped us get through the pandemic years.

In addition to our usual work with students with disabilities and their families we have been asked to help train pre-school teachers who are working in inclusive schools.  Cargills, one of Sri Lanka’s oldest corporates has established inclusive preschools in many areas around the island.  We were happy to be asked to help train their teachers in how to recognize children with disabilities as well as how to work with them in a positive way.  Our foundation principals of “presuming competence” and encouraging communication as well as alternative and augmentative communication to those children who may need non-standard communication strategies were well received.  Plans were made to continue these training seminars.

Our student Oshi has developed a self-employment project, selling potted succulents and cacti. He was given the chance to do a pop-up stall at a newly opened Cargills location too. 

Several new students have joined our classes and are progressing well. 

Thanks again to GlobalGiving our much valued partner in bringing needed services to a marginalized community.

GlobalGiving Report March 2023

Our partnership with GlobalGiving has been a life saver for us here at E.A.S.E. Foundation.

On the 23^rd of January 2023, we, E.A.S.E. Foundation launched an app. for smart phones and Androids.  As our mission is to make communication accessible to everyone this was a communication app.  This is an app in Sinhala and Tamil, the two main languages used by Sri Lankans.  The design of the app is based on a Sinhala communication board made by Anoja a co-founder of E.A.S.E. Foundation in 2007

Anoja and Chandima Rajapatirana are our co-founders/co- presidents. Chandima, is a person with non-speaking autism who communicates fluently in English using various high-tech and low tech devices. When they returned to live in Sri Lanka and establish E.A.S.E. Foundation Chandima needed to communicate in Sinhala. .  Sinhala being a phonetic language has over 750 characters (letters).  It was a challenge to modify the alphabet to fit on a small board without limiting vocabulary.  Fortunately Anoja was able to develop a board, fitting the vast Sinhala alphabet to fit on a 9” x 5” without sacrificing vocabulary.    

Chandima and the nonspeaking children learning at the E.A.S.E. Foundation center communicate using this board. It is used for everyday conversations, answering academic questions, writing poetry, essays and stories too.

In August 2022 a group of software developers visited E.A.S.E Foundation. Noticing the board the students were using to communicate they offered to develop an app. Working with ingenuity and extraordinary commitment they created the Sinhala app named KATHAKARAMU (let’s talk) in a matter of months. We targeted non-speakers in the disability community as well as the deaf mute community.  On learning that mask mandates meant that deaf individuals could no longer lip read speech to text and text to speech were added.

This app is a pioneering effort in Sri Lanka. The ease with which one can type in Sinhala has made it attractive to nondisabled people too.

The app is available without charge from the Google store as Kathakaramu (Sinhala) or Kadhaippoma (Tamil) Both words mean “Let’s Talk.

Thanks again to GlobalGiving and the many donors who keep us supported.  We hope this report shows that we are a creative, inovative organization that finds new ways to support our community. Heartfelt thanks to all of you  

• article about the launch (PDF)