Grace Care Center came to life when the Grace Girls Home opened on August 31, 2002. Grace Home offers a family community for up to 100 girls age 5-22. The children are provided with safe shelter, food, an education, and access to medical treatment. Their eagerness to embrace these opportunities generates a spirit of peace and industry that fills the seven-acre compound.

The Grace community gives the girls who live there other opportunities as well, opportunities which are not available to many Sri Lankan girls but are essential if these girls are to succeed - training for a productive life (at the Vocational Training Center) and interaction with elders (the residents of Mercy Home).

It’s often difficult for these girls who have known so much violence in their lives to believe a peaceful future is possible, but the difficult becomes easier with the support of human compassion. The philosophy of VeAhavta and our volunteers is to encourage supporters of Grace to “sponsor” specific children through regular monthly contributions to Grace, and to write to the children they “sponsor.”  In that way, those who make Grace Center possible can develop a personal connection with Grace, and come to know those they sponsor as individuals - young ladies with a long road ahead, but one made easier if they don’t feel they are traveling alone.

The girls at Grace are the survivors of – and sometimes the witnesses to – the violence that has threatened Sri Lanka’s recent history. These children are also the nation’s future. The relationships that the children form at Grace will last a lifetime, and  will help each of them grow in confidence, work through the tragedies of their lives and begin to trust others once again.

A sign in the Children’s Park at Grace Care Center explains: “Peace allows children the freedom to be children.” Grace Care Center gives its residents a place of peace.  We need your involvement if we are to provide these abandoned children in Sri Lanka with a safe, healthy and nourishing place to be children who can grow up to a life that will help Sri Lanka break the cycles of poverty and violence which have dominated its recent history.

(Please visit our sponsorship page for more information.)