NONA: Jolted by a personal tragedy a young man reaches out
By Kaveesha Fernando
Nirmal Samantha Van Oort was adopted when he was just six weeks old and grew up with his adoptive parents in Netherlands, never knowing who his biological parents were. A visit to Sri Lanka in 2001 when he was 18 gave him the answers he was looking for, but they were not the ones he hoped to hear.
Nirmal and his twin brother were born in Kalutara. His mother had been raped and due to the stigma she faced, she had given her children up for adoption.
Nirmal got to know the story of his mother when he was 18 years old. What upset him even more was the fact that he saw many girls facing the same situation. It was then that he resolved to start the NONA Foundation, which helps girls and young women in Sri Lanka who are in a similar plight. “I realized that there was nothing I could do for my mother but there were many, many girls whom I could help so I decided to do that in her memory,” he says.
NONA Foundation derives its name from the word ‘nona’ which means woman in Sinhala. Nirmal began by collecting money from his friends and family and then started asking various organisations in the Netherlands to donate. He has helped many girls over the years and currently works with the probation home in Kuliyapitiya and has a shelter in Kurunegala where the girls can go after they turn 18 and have to move out of the probation home. Vocational training courses are conducted to ensure that the they receive the training to be self-sufficient.
Nirmal’s programmes fall into two categories - Nona Empowerment Aid and Rizana Empowerment Aid. The former helps girls who have suffered rape, sexual abuse etc. and are in probation homes which they must leave when they turn 18. Through the foundation, the girls are taught skills such as jewellery-making, entrepreneurship etc. in order to earn a stable income. Nirmal emphasises that he doesn’t feel a ‘one size fits all’ approach is prudent when training the girls. “We look at each girl individually and assess what she can do best,” says Nirmal.
Rizana Empowerment Aid is based on the same self-sufficiency principle, but offers help specifically to girls and women in Sri Lanka who had planned to work in the Middle East, giving them the skills needed to work in Sri Lanka instead. This programme is named after Rizana Nafeek – the Sri Lankan maid who was beheaded after she was blamed when the infant in her care met an unfortunate end in Saudi Arabia.
Contacted by adoptees from Sri Lanka living abroad asking him for help for them to locate their own birth mothers, Nirmal set up Lankan Affairs, which allows people who were born in Sri Lanka and adopted by foreign families to find their roots through a database which they gain access to by becoming a member. With over 200 members from Netherlands, Belgium, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, UK and Australia within three months it seems to be off to a good start.
Proceeds from Lankan Affairs are donated to the NONA foundation. “This has become my whole life,” says Nirmal, who works as a lawyer two days a week and dedicates the rest of his time for the foundation. He is positive that with hard work, the lives of these girls can be changed for the better.
For further information, please visit their website http://www.nonafoundation.com/en/and https:// lankanaffairs.com/. Nirmal can also be contacted via chairman@ lankanaffairs.com.