The NONA Empowerment Aid offers help to girls who have to leave the shelters of the Child Care and Protection Services when they turn 18. These girls were taken care of as victims of sexual violence, but also because of neglect, physical or mental abuse. It is difficult for this target group to build a life in society. Because they have been rejected by their environment, they cannot always make the start they are entitled to. Nor are they always allowed access to the resources which they need to build a healthy and happy future. NONA Foundation helps them to set up their own business by providing a kind of micro credit so that they will eventually be independent and self-reliant and in this way regaining self-esteem and belief in society. Each girl looks at what her talents are and where her potential lies, so that she can, for example, start her own sewing atelier, start a shop or learn to renovate a piece of land. NONA Lanka continuously monitors the development of the girls and offers every girl appropriate guidance.
NONA Foundation receives data from the Sri Lankan authorities and local organizations about girls who have left the Sri Lankan care homes after turning 18 and returned to society. NONA Lanka visits these young women and investigates whether there is a need for NONA Empowerment Aid. If this turns out to be the case, a business plan is created in collaboration with the girl to maximize the chances of success. This business plan describes in detail how she wants to invest the money and how and when this investment can become a source of income, so that our principles of independence and self-reliance are realized. If the business plan is approved by a special committee, the first part of the NONA Empowerment Aid will be transferred and the plan can be implemented under the guidance and supervision of NONA Lanka. After each completed phase (stated in the business plan), NONA Foundation will pay out part of the loan. Even after the completion of its own company, NONA Lanka continues to monitor these girls to ensure their well-being and guarantee the functioning of their company.
NONA Foundation has created the “Rizana Empowerment Aid” as an extension of the NONA Empowerment Aid. Rizana Empowerment Aid has the same principle as the NONA Empowerment Aid but offers specific help to girls and women in Sri Lanka who want to flee Sri Lanka out of desperation because of poverty, to earn money in the Middle East.
Rizana Empowerment Aid is based on and named after the story of Rizana Nafeek. She spent eight years innocently on death row in Saudi Arabia for false accusations by a Saudi family. Broken physically and mentally, she was publicly beheaded in January 2013. She was not even 25 years old. Because an awful amount of Sri Lankan women work as domestic helpers in the Middle East and the vast majority of these women are systematically raped, abused and tortured and a small percentage even die from this situation, NONA Foundation wants to prevent Sri Lankan girls and women from entering this country.
By means of a micro credit, they can stay with their families in Sri Lanka to start a business in their own area and earn their money. This group of women is also provided by NONA Lanka with advice and guidance so that they can achieve their business goals as optimally as possible. With the Rizana Empowerment Aid, mothers can stay with their children, daughters can stay with their parents and fight against poverty because their own company has a positive influence on their immediate environment.
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