My name is Sharmila Seyyid. I need your help in creating a brighter tomorrow for girls lives in marginalized communities in Sri Lanka. (If you are interested in learning more about me, please read the section titled "Learn About Me" that is located below).

In 2017, I was initiated the Safe Space for Girls and Women program, which seeks to provide women and girls with training, education, and emotional and therapeutic support in a nurturing environment. Since 2017, Safe Space has funded the education of more than 200 girls. Safe Space currently assists four single mothers’ family and sixteen young girls, providing them with the urgently required support. However, the demand for services exceeds my capacity. There are a great number of girls eagerly awaiting for the support and guidance.

The goal of this fundraising campaign is to address the most pressing issues and obstacles we face in our mission to empower and support women and girls in Sri Lanka.

A series of intertwined issues exacerbate the situation for young women, making them more vulnerable. Financial difficulties, adolescent pregnancy, early marriage, and a lack of infrastructure all contribute to their hardships.

Girls who are marginalized, religiously persecuted, and culturally subjugated are the focus of the Safe Space community's educational efforts. Even when I am not in the country, I continue my social work to prevent girls and women from experiencing the harassment and persecution I have endured.

I respectfully request your assistance in the form of funding that will assist us in expanding our reach and influence.

As a community in Sri Lanka, the Safe Space Initiative has a unique vision for rejuvenating society. By providing educational support, we empower girls and women to break free from the cycle of poverty and discrimination. Additionally, offering shelter in a safe space ensures that vulnerable girls have a secure environment where they can heal and thrive. Together, we can create a brighter future for our community.

Every dollar you give goes toward helping our small but deeply passionate way:

• Deliver educational support for girls and women.

• giving shelter in a safe space for vulnerable girls.

• Help a single mother become an entrepreneur.

• Plus, so much more in 2024 and beyond

The work we do isn’t easy, and the fruits aren’t always immediate, but it’s work that must be done to ensure a brighter tomorrow.

Thank you in advance for your efforts to better the lives of women and girls in our community. I look forward to the prospect of collaborating with you to provide those in need with a safer and more equitable future.

Thankfully,

Sharmila Seyyid

For a regenerative future.

Learn about me:

I am a passionate artist and social worker with experience in leadership and initiative, as well as a strong publishing background. The journey from Eravur, a conservative village in the East, to becoming a successful journalist, artist, and social worker was not a simple journey. I have published both fiction, nonfiction and poetry, and my work has received awards including 'best novel of the year' for Ummath, which is available in English from HarperCollins.

I become a target of the very persecution seeks to fight. I rapidly became a target of vitriolic criticism, harassment, and death threats because of my literary work and human right activism in Sri Lanka. The campaign launched against me in 2012 included explicit images with my face photoshopped into it, and false claims of me having been raped and killed. At a certain point, even my family believed I had been murdered and was frantic with worry. Spurred on by extremist elements in the Eastern Province, the community branded me a whore and an outcast.

In December 2012, me, a single mother with a two-year-old son, made my way to India. I lived there in self-imposed exile until tensions simmered down a bit. During this time, I publish my first novel, Ummath, in 2014.

Nonetheless, after living at the most threatening edges of society for four years in India, I returned to Sri Lanka in 2015 to continue my work as a human rights advocate and writer. Upon my return, I established Mantra Life, an organization that seeks to lessen the gender gap in Sri Lanka’s economic, political, and social spheres by helping women become financially independent.

Unfortunately, I have continued to feel unsafe in my country. I was again forced to go into exile and separate from my sons in August 2019. Fortunately, in 2021, I awarded a prestigious IIE-Artist Protection Fund Fellowship (IIE-APF) and placed in residence with UNO’s Leonard and Shirley Goldstein Center for Human Rights (GCHR) and UNO’s Sam and Frances Fried Holocaust and Genocide Academy. Currently I am living in Omaha, Nebraska with my two sons and husband.

I'm sure you can guess that my story ends well. But like me, all the women and girls who have been hurt and ignored because of politics, religion, culture, sexism, social class, or culture did not have the same chances. Their fight is still going on. They need education and protection to succeed in their struggle for life.