UKFG was set up by Devsiri (Siri) Hewavidana and his family immediately after the Tsunami disaster that shocked the world in December 2004. It started with an email to friends, and has grown since.
Devsiri is a Sri Lankan who was born in Galle, he received higher education in the UK and graduated as a Lean Manufacturing Engineer. He has lived and worked in the UK ever since. He currently works with Rolls Royce, Derby and lives in Ashford Kent with his wife Ruvini and the three children. Devsiri is also an active writer and journalist with a regular column in Sri Lanka’s biggest Sunday paper LAKBIMA. Every Summer Devsiri and his family return to Srilanka to visit Tsunami victims and very poor schools in rural areas of Galle and distribute much needed stationery and gifts that have been donated by British friends and companies. Devsiri’s wife Ruvini fully supports his tireless work and efforts. Mick and Val Chittenden from Essex have also been involved from the very beginning as they donated the money for UKFG’s first house and then funded the second house Casco. Mick is now the website manager and Val looks after some of the presentations to gain more funds/donations.
Ruvini’s father Sirisena Gamage is our project manager, Devsiri’s brother Laksiri is our Scholarship manager, and Ruvini’s sister is our architect. 5 doctors in the family look after the scholarship children‘s health. We are a small group of friends whose interest is to support the children (approx 220 now); we do not use any of the donation/scholarship money to fund expenses. We all give our time freely and NO expenses are ever expected. The only salary awarded is for our scholarship supervisor Najila and that has been donated/funded by Sky TV.
It is a great credit to all the philanthropist donors and supporters in UK that UKFG has managed to raise well over £100,000 for scholarships for poor children and library building programmes in a few schools in rural Southern Srilanka, since 2004 Tsunami.