10 year old Krish Sivagananathan kicks off Kids4SL initiative to support Govt. COVID-19 Fund

10 year old Krish Sivagananathan, a student of grade 5, has kicked off a unique Kids4SL fund raiser to support the Government’s COVID-19 fund. The website: www.Kids4SL.com is a website that aims to motivate children to support the Government of Sri Lanka’s Covid-19 fund.

It was developed to encourage children to participate in raising funds. First, they need to decide on a fun activity that they would want to do. Then ask friends and family to sponsor them. Once the activity is completed, ask their parents to collect the funds and transfer to Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 fund. They can also upload a picture of their activity and the pledged amount.

The site also records the total money collected by the children. Krish says he was inspired by UK’s Capt. Tom Moore (100 years old) who walked for over 20 days raising money for the NHS and also the 5 year old Henry Edwards who ran 2.6 miles every day for 10 days to raise money.

“Also my uncle Nathan walked the length of the country to collect money to build cancer hospitals in North and South (Trail Sri Lanka). That was the first time I participated in a charity event and I also wanted to do something like that. I thought of riding my bicycle 5km daily for 10 days (50 km in total) to raise money for the COVID-19 fund and wanted other children to join in. My brother Tashane who is 5 years old has joined me. He daily rides 1 km on his bicycle,’’ Krish elaborated. The website was created to spread the message amongst other children to start doing an activity to raise money.

Commenting on the type of activities that the children can do during curfew, Krish said since all the schools are closed now, the children have free time to do an activity. It can be anything that they like to do. If the children have a garden, they could do sports activity such as cycling, running, walking, skipping etc. If the children do not have a garden they could do something indoors such as reading books, painting, baking, cleaning, playing a board game etc. This can be done as a family too. 

In terms of sponsorship, Krish says the children can tell their parents, relatives, friends, teachers etc. and get the message across to as many people as possible about their activity and get sponsorship. The activity can be completed in a day or a number of days.  

Explaining how a child can contribute to the fund, Krish said after completing the activity, each child can get their parents to transfer the money collected directly to the COVID-19 Healthcare and Social Security Fund of the Government which is at the Bank of Ceylon, Corporate Branch, account number: 0085737373. They can transfer online or deposit a cheque directly at any BOC branch. They can also donate via their mobile phone by dialling #207#. According to Krish it would be “awesome” if all the children together could raise Rs. 1 million for the COVID-19 fund. Commenting on future plans, he said he raised Rs 50,000 during his first 10 days of cycling. “If I can find more sponsors after I complete the ten days, then I will continue to ride my bicycle to collect more funds. So far my brother and I have collected Rs 75,000 and we have a long way to go,” he added.

When asked what his message was to the children, Krish said: “As children, we can also make a difference to the country by doing what we can in a small way. I am inspired by many children across the world who have done different things to raise money to support their country. I hope we can join hands together to help our country to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic.