Thank you for visiting our page which the Ramanathan family have set up in memory of Ram – our much loved husband, father, brother, grandfather, uncle and friend – and to celebrate his life.

Murugesu Ramanathan grew up in Jaffna in the north of Sri Lanka and although he left for the UK in 1957, Ram never forgot the people of northern Sri Lanka. Ram strongly believed in the importance of Education, Family and Community.  The Ramanathan family would like to remember this and our support of Child Action Lanka, and particularly their work Kilinochchi, is a perfect reflection of those beliefs.

Across Sri Lanka there are hundreds of vulnerable children in both urban and rural areas – orphans, street children left to fend for themselves, children from poverty stricken families, and victims of war and conflict. Child Action Lanka (childactionlanka.org ) aims to protect the most disadvantaged children and provide holistic education, health and nutrition promoting their basic needs, rights and interests to enable them, their families and communities to be individuals who bring positive change.

CAL provides Day Care, Pre-school and After school care facilities through Child Development Centres, including meals, educational support, bathing/laundry and life opportunities to children from street and underprivileged circumstances.

The Killinochchi centre reaches out to over 150 children from families who have been through the 30 year civil war that Sri Lanka faced a little over a decade ago. This centre serves a community that is hungry for knowledge. Children come as early as 5:30am to learn as much as they can. The centre has its own playgroup, preschool, and special afterschool classes as well as sports and other facilities it offers to help this community receive education, well-being and equality. We hope to support the on-going work of this centre through this appeal.

Archie, Ram's grandson, is a sixth form pupil at Tonbridge School in Kent, UK. Tonbridge School has worked in partnership with Child Action Lanka since 2015, running regular fundraising events and annual trips with students to work in CAL centres across Sri Lanka. In 2019, Tonbridge School funded and equipped a new CAL Child Development Centre in Batticaloa. Throughout the 2020 pandemic, links have continued, with Tonbridge students writing letters or meeting on-line with students in Kilinochchi to share their experiences. Tonbridge School is proud to work with the Ramanathan family to continue supporting CAL in Kilinochchi.