In order to encourage the daily school attendance of school children in remote areas, a total of 500 bicycles were given as a grant from the Japanese ‘ChildFund’ organization to Sri Lanka to provide students with the opportunity to attend school continuously.
These bicycles were officialy handed over today by Education Minister Susil Premajayantha at Water’s Edge, Battaramulla.
Japanese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Mizukoshi Hadeaki, representative of the Japanese ‘Childfund’ Institute Yuko Ishanda and the National Director of the Sri Lankan ‘Childfund’ Institute Ms. Aditi Gosh participated in the event.
Suitable students between the ages of 12 and 16 have been selected from 108 schools in 12 districts with transportation difficulties such as Moneragala, Puttalam and Mullaitivu to provide this stock of bicycles that have already been received in Sri Lanka.
One of the main criteria considered in providing these bicycles is that the distance from home to school should be at least two and a half kilometres. Financial difficulties and other difficulties of the students’ families are also taken into consideration.
