First day with the children

Prison Babies in 2007 - 2009

What we basically do in Prison Babies is to visit the prison and play with children living in there. Since their outdoor activities are limited and are deprived of a normal childhood existence with family and friends, instead spending their days with prisoners and institutional staff, the students at OSC have decided to visit them to spend at least an hour with them.













However, we were not able to visit the prison for the security reasons for last few years. Fortunately, we could still have contact with them and bring them to our campus that we were able to continually meet with them every Thursday after school. Most of us are non-Singhalese speakable. We cannot understand every single words they are saying, but still we can see and feel the innocence and brightness in them. We believe that we ain't so different, but we are much more similar in many ways that we can be good friends. We hope to believe that they would feel the same way as we do.












From the year of 2009, we are planning to visit the Prison more often. We've been planning this from last year, but it didn't really work well because it was hard to get the permission from them. We could only visit there once from last year, but this year, we are planning to be more active. As the long Sri Lankan civil war is over, we wish that it'll be much easier to get the permission to visit them.

Prison Babies at OSC

In 1996, after reading a newspaper article about imprisoned women and their babies, the students of OSC undertook to help these children. Initially the activities consisted of art, games and singing in an attempt to brighten their days. Gradually our group realized that the children required more than games, such basic necessities like a balanced diet and proper clothing. The babies seldom received cereal, special baby food or even fresh fruits, things most of us take for granted.

These children were deprived of a normal childhood existence with family and friends, instead spending their days with prisoners and institutional staff. The OSC has contributed immensely to changing this situation by their positive interaction and assistance, thereby, bringing a much needed ray of sunshine to their day.

The aim of the prison babies group is to further improve the quality of life of these less fortunate children who serve a sentence for crimes they never committed, condemned to this life as the unfortunate victims of their mothers crimes.

The hard work and commitment of the student volunteers of the OSC have not gone unrecognized. In 1999, this project was selected for the first prize among 27 international schools due to the unique nature of this activity. Furthermore, in 2000 the program was awarded a NESA grant. The OSC sponsors a regular local teacher in the preschool.