August 10, 2025 • 30 mins
In this powerful episode, Rodney sits down with Sidhara Udalagama, a communications specialist at Compassion Australia who was born and raised in Sri Lanka. Sidhara shares her unique perspective on global poverty, having recently returned to her homeland with Compassion to capture stories of young women facing significant barriers. Her insights reveal the multidimensional nature of poverty and how it affects every aspect of human dignity, from the basic need to matter and be seen, to practical challenges like period poverty that force girls to abandon their education.
Through compelling stories from Sri Lanka, Uganda, and the Philippines, Sidhara demonstrates how locally-led approaches are creating lasting transformation in communities. From child-headed households where siblings care for each other, to aspiring fashion designers defying expectations, to mothers pulled back from the brink of despair, these stories showcase both the heartbreaking realities of poverty and the incredible hope emerging through compassionate intervention. Sidhara challenges listeners to expand their definition of "neighbour" beyond their local community to embrace a global perspective on care and responsibility.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Hello, I'm so thankful you've joined me today.
You'll find many more Bleeding Daylight episodes at bleedingdaylight.net.
Please help to push back the shadows by sharing this and other Bleeding Daylight episodes with those you care about.
(00:36):
Have you ever had the opportunity to visit somewhere you know incredibly well and see it through new eyes?
Today's guest visited the country where she was born, a place she's been to many times.
But this time, she had the opportunity to look beyond the familiar to see both heartache and hope.
(01:03):
Today, I'm thrilled to welcome someone who brings both personal connection and professional insight to our conversation about global challenges facing young women.
Sidhara Udalgama is a communications specialist at Compassion Australia.
She was born and raised in Sri Lanka, educated in England with a Master's in Organisational Psychology and is now based in Western Australia.
(01:28):
Last year, Sidhara returned to her homeland of Sri Lanka with Compassion, capturing powerful stories of girls confronting a range of barriers.
She has also travelled to places like Uganda and the Philippines, seeing both the challenges faced by women in those countries and the hope for a changed future.
Sidhara, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
(01:49):
Hello, Rodney.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's such a pleasure to be here.
I'm wondering, can you tell me and help me understand a little of your early years in Sri Lanka and how old you were when you left?
Yeah, absolutely.
I was born and raised in Sri Lanka.
My parents still live there, so Sri Lanka will always be home in many ways.
(02:11):
I was actually born, now this is interesting, I was born during the civil war that was taking place in Sri Lanka.
So I lived in the capital, so it's not like we were in the midst of any heavy fighting or anything like that.
But we did have challenges growing up in terms of there were bombs that went off close to our parents' workplaces.
We had security checkpoints and there was a whole heap of things that were happening in Sri Lanka at the time.
(02:35):
There was a lot of civil unrest that would come in waves over those early years.
I have to say, despite all of that, I had a very happy childhood and Sri Lanka is a wonderful place to grow up.
The culture is beautiful, the people are beautiful and anyone that's gone there knows that it's a wonderful place to be around.
There's so much warmth and just a love of people that I think is just wonderful to be surrounded with when you grow up.
(02:59):
I lived there until I was 19 and then when I went to university, that's when I left Sri Lanka and I moved to England or Nottingham in England.
I'm wondering how it felt to return to your homeland and to hear the stories of young women who have incredible potential but have never been given the opportunities that you've been able to experience.
(03:21):
I have gone back repeatedly across the years, but last year was my first ever time going with Compassion.
As you can imagine, it's a very different thing because you are there to not just visit home, but you have these incredible conversations with women and with young girls.
It was very confronting, to be honest.
Growing up, I always felt like I had opportunity.
(03:43):
I think you described it the best, Rodney, that question when you said, for me, I find that there's so much potential in all these young women, but there's just not enough opportunity.
That's where poverty comes to play such a huge role.
I think listening to those stories and listening to the dreams that they have in their heart and listening to the reality of their situations, it was heartbreaking, it was confronting, but it also left me hopeful because I saw the work that Compassion's partners were doing on the ground.
(04:15):
I thought, okay, there's actual hope for real change and real transformation in a lasting way.
It's not just tokenistic, but there's actual change happening on the ground.
It was almost a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions.
There was heartbreak, it was confrontational, but I left also hopeful.
It must have been amazing to see things differently.
(04:37):
I imagine that even as you were growing up, you knew that there were areas of poverty.
Some people think, well, that's different to where we live in the Western world, and yet in the Western world, we get so good at hiding poverty, whereas in some other countries, it's out there to be seen.
And yet, even having seen that growing up, there must have been things that surprised you.
(05:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
One of the interesting things growing up in a developing country, like you say, Rodney, is that you see the stark contrast almost side-by-side.
You'd see a huge skyscraper building, and then there is a little shack where you'd see a family trying to survive in a little one-bedroom shack almost side-by-side.
(05:21):
I wonder sometimes growing up in that environment whether you get desensitized to it in some ways, whereas in the Western world, you're right, we get good at hiding poverty or it's easier to pass by.
In the developing world, it's not easy to pass by because it stares you right in the face.
That was one of the questions I asked myself when I went back last year was, how much of poverty have I got desensitized to?
(05:43):
How much of it makes me numb because it's something that has almost become normal or part of the fabric of how we grew up?
There were things that surprised me in the sense that when I had conversations with young girls or when we were talking to some of the center directors at Compassion, people say it all the time, but there's more that unites us than divides us.
(06:04):
Regardless of how you've grown up or what resources you had, one of the truly human things or the human needs that we all carry is the need to matter, the need to be seen, the need to have a voice.
What poverty does is that it dampens that inhumanity, tells you that you are not worthy, tells you that you don't have a voice, that you don't matter, that your life doesn't count.
(06:28):
Talking to young girls, talking to some of the people that are around these young, vulnerable children every day, it's just surprising to me that situations and circumstances like poverty can almost pull that need out of you.
Poverty, it just struck it back home for me again that it's not just about material resources, but it's actually multidimensional in so many ways.
(06:52):
It affects you.
It affects you physically.
It affects you spiritually, emotionally, and cognitively.
It affects every part of who you are.
It's good to know that in theory, but to see it played out in real life, I think that was one of the things that surprised me the most.
That's one of the things that we often miss in the Western world, in that we tend to think that poverty is just a lack of stuff.
(07:16):
We've got stuff.
We can send stuff.
Problem solved.
And yet, as you say there, it speaks to the heart of a person.
And as we already touched on, for those young women or for people generally living in poverty, there's a potential, but they're made to believe there is no potential.
There is hope, but they're made to believe there is no hope.
(07:37):
And it must be a delight for you to see hope spring into the lives of some of these people.
That question actually takes me back to a conversation I had with a young girl.
I still remember her name, Shalini.
We were sat around this table in one of the Compassion Project Centres.
Compassion do this, it's almost like a workbook that every child does when they're about 12 and above.
(07:59):
And it's called My Plan for Tomorrow.
It is literally designed to tease out of kids or get them to think in a way that they can express their dreams and express their potential.
The centre director told us sometimes when they first come to this workbook and they're asked, you know, what are your dreams?
What do you want to do when you grow up?
It's almost like a blank.
(08:20):
They take a bit of time because often no one has ever asked them that question.
They never thought that they would be able to express the dreams in their heart.
Sometimes they haven't even learned to dream yet.
Sitting around this table, looking at these workbooks, it said My Plan for Tomorrow.
And it details, this is my goal for tomorrow.
This is what I want to be when I grow up.
But then it's very practical.
(08:41):
It's, these are my strengths.
These are the areas I need to improve in.
This is the plan that's going to help me achieve my goal.
Small, measurable steps forward in the right direction.
I sat listening to this group of girls and one in particular, Shalini, she said, I want to be a fashion designer when I grow up.
That took me by surprise because children who live in poverty don't often dream of becoming fashion designers.
(09:05):
It seems completely untenable.
I got so excited and I was like, tell me more about that.
She said that when she was younger, she used to love to draw.
And she still does.
She excitedly said that she had so many designs that she'd collected over the years.
And at the Compassion Center for big events, they would give her the opportunity to design costumes.
(09:26):
She was practicing and honing her skills and the Compassion Center was supporting her in achieving those dreams.
I just thought, oh my goodness, this is something that you don't hear often.
And in the areas that I've traveled to, it's not something I've heard very often.
Just allowing a child or giving permission to a child or giving opportunity to a child to dream and dream beyond the confines of what they see.
(09:50):
A dream in a way that is also tangible.
Every dream needs to have a plan.
And so in this way, just to see the hope in her eyes.
And she's 19 now.
So she is working her way towards this dream and she's studying for it.
The Compassion Centers are helping her.
They're supporting her.
And it's very exciting to see what her future could look like despite the start she's had in life.
(10:15):
We've talked generally about the effects of poverty in places like Sri Lanka.
But I know that you are specifically looking at the issues with young women.
What were some of the differences that you saw, the barriers that are specifically holding back young women?
Great question, Rodney.
We know that one in 10 women worldwide face poverty, which is a huge statistic in itself.
(10:41):
We find that women and children are disproportionately affected by poverty.
And there's a range of factors associated with that.
So often women have least access to education, least access to health care in some regions.
There are barriers like period poverty.
There's early child marriage.
There's sometimes family and spousal abuse that affects young girls and women.
(11:03):
And so there are a range of factors.
And there's also social and societal stigmas and discrimination and barriers in that way as well.
There's a whole range of factors that affects young women.
We find that to break those barriers, there needs to be an extra level of support and an extra level of intentionality in terms of overcoming those barriers to see a future that's free of poverty.
(11:28):
Traveling to Sri Lanka, one of the major, major, I guess, factors was period poverty.
And it's not something that we talk about a lot.
It's not something that's in the media a lot.
But it's a very real phenomenon.
It's period poverty in the sense where young girls or women around the world, they don't have either the education, the supplies or the hygiene facilities to manage their periods with safety and with dignity.
(11:53):
In Sri Lanka, because of period poverty, there are girls who miss school.
And when they miss school, they fall further and further behind in class.
So at that point, sometimes they just stop going to school altogether.
Whereas we know that education is one of the key factors in breaking this cycle of poverty.
What does having a safe and dignified toilet have to do with education?
(12:14):
Well, there are all these cultural nuances that means that a young girl can face so many factors when it comes to getting an education that keeps her from being in that classroom, which then affects her future in a way that you wouldn't think would be affected.
But it is.
And so there are all of these sometimes hidden challenges that aren't really overt, but actually do make a huge impact in a young girl being able to stay in school, get an education and then find a future that's different to how they grew up.
(12:47):
That's one of those things, as you touched on, that even installing a reasonable toilet facility at a local school or at a compassion center is more than just somewhere for someone to go to the toilet.
It has wide ranging effects.
And we often miss things like that for those of us that have never grown up in that situation, don't we?
(13:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
The stats in itself are staggering, Rodney.
Like it's estimated that it's at least 500 million girls and women globally lack access to sanitation facilities.
When I read that number, it absolutely blew my mind.
It's a basic human need.
And like you say, for us who grow up in different circumstances or perhaps in the Western world, these are not things that we even think would be a factor because it's present in our lives.
(13:36):
You know, we have public toilets.
When I went to visit Sri Lanka and we went to some of the rural parts of Sri Lanka, you find that for a lot of families, they all just grow up in one room.
There is no privacy.
Like the kitchen is in the same room that they don't even sometimes have a toilet.
Or there is a little shack that is far away outside of their actual environment that multiple families might use.
(14:00):
Sometimes that facility is not even there.
And so sometimes they go to the jungle when they need to use the bathroom facilities.
That's really dangerous for obvious reasons.
You just find that there are so many factors that affect young girls and young women growing up in poverty that you wouldn't even think.
There's a safety piece.
There's a dignity piece.
(14:20):
There's a privacy piece, especially when it comes to toilets and hygiene facilities.
And it just impacts a young girl in ways that we wouldn't even think of.
But it does play a really significant role in impacting her future.
Some of the things you were talking about there were the expectation on girls and young women.
(14:40):
And I imagine to break the back of that, you're not only having to let a young girl know that she has potential, that there is hope, but you're having to change society, which is a much bigger picture.
How do you start to go about something that big?
In very, very small steps is probably the best answer.
And I think the best example I can give of that is our local partners in countries like Sri Lanka.
(15:07):
And you're right.
It's not just telling a young girl that they have potential, but it is trying to break down the social stigmas, the cultural barriers that also exist within that vacuum, within that environment.
So, for example, with something like period poverty, there's so much misinformation and so much lack of access to the right information.
(15:28):
It's almost a taboo subject that is not talked about socially.
Young girls often grow up very confused.
They don't know what's happening to their bodies.
They don't know what the right things to do are.
Sometimes there are practices that have been passed down generation upon generation that are not sanitary.
And so there's an educational side that takes place with the families, with the leaders of society, the leaders in those communities to break down barriers and to put in the right kinds of information.
(15:58):
So it's a slow process.
But I think what's truly beautiful to see is that the local partner, they're already a part of that community.
So it's not like we're coming in from Australia and saying, hey, everyone, we've got some really new ideas about this.
We've got the right information.
Here you go.
Because that, we have found, it doesn't really work.
But I love that Compassion takes a locally-led approach.
(16:21):
It is the local community.
It's people that are employed by Compassion that are already local to that community.
They're the ones who are the changemakers.
They're the ones who are active in their community.
They're the ones who already had relational equity in this society.
They're the ones making change.
They're the ones taking the right kind of information.
They're the ones inviting families and parents and aunts and cousins and uncles and aunts.
(16:47):
Because it is a collectivist society, so it matters.
Those wider relational networks matter.
And they're the best position to understand those nuances.
And they're the ones making changes, breaking down those barriers, bit by bit, conversation by conversation, awareness program by awareness program, seminar by seminar.
And it is really a relational process that occurs in these societies.
(17:10):
I know you've been to some other countries with Compassion.
And we also know that things are different from country to country.
So, were there some other barriers that you saw for young women in some of the other countries that you've been to?
Uganda springs to mind pretty quickly.
I was there two years ago.
In Uganda, one of the stark realities at that time was the global food crisis.
(17:34):
It wasn't particular to young women per se.
But again, in the developing world, in some areas and in some cultures and in some societies, in that household, women eat last.
Even from a nutritional point of view, for young girls and for women in those societies, even in the midst of a global food crisis, you'd find that the precedence was always given to men in some cultures and in some instances.
(18:02):
There are interesting nuances that come into play culturally in some of those societies.
Another nuance was that we were introduced to child-headed households.
This is a household that has no adults in it.
So, there are no parents.
In this particular household, the mother had passed away and the father hadn't been seen for a while.
(18:23):
He was working away but probably wasn't quite in touch with his family.
And so, you had four children growing up with no adults to love them, to care for them, or to support them.
There were two young girls.
We actually went to meet a young girl who was enrolled in the compassion program.
Her name was Vicky.
And she was an amazing, amazing young girl.
(18:46):
To think that there are young girls growing up without the care of a parent, without the care of a loved one.
And I remember meeting Vicky for the first time.
And I don't know what it was but she just hugged me.
And then we were literally hugged.
We were hugging for the entire trip.
We were talking to some of the local staff there.
(19:06):
They were saying maybe there's a connection because she doesn't have her own mother.
Maybe there's just a connection there that she feels.
And it was a beautiful experience.
But I think about Vicky often.
And I think about just the life that she lives and the life that she has to lead in the absence of caregivers.
And I wonder about her future.
But I think what was beautiful when I talked to her was that the compassion staff had stepped in and they're really their second family.
(19:31):
They support them.
They love them.
They care for them.
And you can just see the bond that exists between the compassion staff and this wonderful group of siblings.
Vicky was saying that she wanted to be a teacher when she grows up.
It's wonderful that this girl who has no parents, who has no caregivers, actually has a dream for the future.
(19:53):
Her brother actually said that he wants to be a pastor.
There's all of these glimpses of hope and all of these glimpses of potential in these children that I think is wonderful to see despite the stark realities of the environment that they're growing up in.
One of the things that a lot of people ask when they hear about organisations that are helping those who live in poverty is, does it really work?
(20:17):
Compassion has been operating for over 70 years now.
So I imagine that there are some amazing stories of people's lives that have been changed, but not just people, but whole communities.
Are there any that perhaps come to mind that would really reassure people if they're thinking, is this something I can put my finances towards and help other people to receive hope?
(20:43):
It's a great question, and I think it's a valid question in people's minds because we want to make sure that when we are sowing into something or resourcing something, that it actually reaches the end result or the purported outcome in most ways.
One of the things for me is being able to be on the ground and actually seeing firsthand the impact in families, in children, in communities, getting to talk to the families that have been impacted.
(21:12):
I have so many stories I know that we don't have all day, so I'll stick to just a few or a couple and give you some of the high-level details of it.
But Sri Lanka last year was a really good example of that.
I know a lot of people think about compassion.
They think about child sponsorship, but compassion is more than just child sponsorship.
There's so many other programs that run parallel to the child sponsorship program that actually supplement and really complement the sponsorship intervention as well.
(21:38):
And so one of these is the Moms and Babies Program, one of the projects that we visited in Sri Lanka.
The stories that were coming out of the Moms and Babies Program, and not just for mothers and their children, but also for the entire community, it was really fascinating.
In Sri Lanka, sometimes you'd find that raising children is often seen as a woman's job, it's the mother's job, and the dads don't really get involved.
(22:02):
In this particular part of Sri Lanka, life is really hard.
It's a beautiful area, but a lot of the people in that community work as tea pluckers.
And it's long, it's arduous, it's physical labor, and you work rain and shine.
And then you come home and you try to put food on the table for your kids.
It is a hard life.
A lot of the men are driven to alcoholism just to get through the days.
(22:25):
The women, they suffer from depression, they suffer from mental health challenges.
We met this one lady, and she said she got to the point of pretty much she just had enough and she thought that she couldn't go on anymore.
She was just about to do something unthinkable when she heard a knock on the door.
It just so happened that it was her Compassion Project Moms and Babies tutor that knocked on the door at that exact same time.
(22:51):
And she came in, and they had a good relationship already.
And she talked about just feeling this immense sense of relief.
And obviously, Pramila, who was a Moms and Babies tutor, she knew that something wasn't quite right.
She was able to talk her down off the ledge.
They were able to get practical support, physical support.
They were able to get emotional support.
And so now, this family is not just in a place where they're thriving, but so many families in that area with similar situations have encountered this relational bond with Pramila.
(23:24):
Word of mouth has spread.
There's more families that have come together.
And now there's, I wouldn't say a community-wide revolution, but it's almost like this ripple effect that has spread through the community.
Even within that Moms and Babies program, there are dads that come now.
They're able to kind of invite parental units to come together.
Marriages are better because of this program.
(23:47):
Families are better.
Children are better because the parents are happier.
The parents have support.
Even in parenting, just basic skills as to how to raise your children or what kind of conversations to have, there is such a ripple effect from one intervention or even the sponsorship of one child.
You find like talking to Vicky.
Now, Vicky is enrolled in the Compassion Project in Uganda, but the family has such a great benefit.
(24:13):
There's relationship with the staff.
When Vicky's sponsor sends her gifts, the whole family benefits.
Then there's a communal aspect of that.
Abel was saying, Abel is Vicky's brother.
He was saying how with the help of the center staff, they've actually started income generation schemes.
This little 12-year-old boy, he's saying now his friends want to get involved.
(24:33):
The neighbors are asking questions.
Now, they're implementing some of those same strategies.
There are overt kind of ripple effects, but then there are also these little undercurrents that spread far and wide in ways that we wouldn't see unless you were on the ground.
There's just beautiful stories of transformation, beautiful stories of hope, not just for children and not just for their families, but also for communities, which is wonderful to see.
(24:58):
We seem to be living in a time of individualism, and unfortunately, that seems to have also crept into the church.
What would you say to those listening at the moment who are Jesus followers about our collective responsibility to actually care for and nurture those living in poverty?
(25:19):
Yeah.
My mind immediately goes to the parable of the Good Samaritan, and I think Jesus spells it out so clearly for us.
When we think about neighbor, often, I know for me, I think about the person who lives next door or the person down my street.
That's who I define as neighbor.
But when Jesus is asked about who is my neighbor, his definition is so much broader.
(25:42):
It's so much more vast than that.
And in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus almost points out to us that a neighbor is anyone that we see, anyone that we come across, anyone that needs our help.
The definition of neighbor is not just local, but it's also global.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to love and care for our neighbors, love our neighbors as we would ourselves.
(26:09):
And that definition of neighbor goes far beyond the people that sit on our cul-de-sac or sit down our road or live down the next street to us.
As followers of Jesus, we have a mandate from Jesus to care, not just locally, but also globally.
When I think about children like Vicky, when I think about children like Shalini, these are children who are growing up in different corners of the world.
(26:35):
And yes, we might never see them face to face, but actually our humanity is the same.
Perhaps there are people listening to this podcast that have children themselves and perhaps to identify with a culture that is actually collectivist.
And I think there's so much we can learn from cultures in the developing world, which are inherently collectivist cultures.
(26:58):
They do care about their neighbors.
They do care about the person down the street.
And for us, we are in a position to be able to help not just locally, but also globally in many senses of that word, whether that's praying for our global neighbors.
Because prayer is so important.
We know that prayer works.
We have seen prayer bring breakthrough.
So even if someone is like, well, I can't do anything financially, we can all pray.
(27:22):
We can all raise awareness.
We can all have conversations that are not just local, but also global.
Perhaps for some listeners, they have financial resource to be able to sow into the lives of people and vulnerable children that are not just local, but also global.
Reading the parable of the Good Samaritan, it's something that I come back to in the book of Luke often.
(27:42):
I would say, actually, maybe if someone is stirred by that, why not go away and actually read that portion of scripture again and allow the Holy Spirit to make it come alive in your heart again?
Perhaps there will be something that stirs within you to expand that definition of neighbor, not just to be local, but also to be global.
(28:02):
What I love about that parable of the Good Samaritan is that the Samaritan actually takes this man who has been beaten and bruised and takes him to the inn and says, I'm not the best place person to care for this beaten up man in an ongoing way.
I will resource it and I will continue to come back and resource until the healing is done.
(28:25):
And we get to do that through compassion.
We say we're not the best place people to help a young girl in Sri Lanka or Uganda or the Philippines or wherever, but we can continue to resource until the healing is complete.
If people are wanting to find out more about how they can do that, where's the easiest place for them to go?
(28:45):
Our website is probably the easiest place to go.
There's a variety of options of how you can resource, of how you can get involved and be a part of really what God is doing around the world.
Compassion.com.au if you're in Australia or Compassion.com if you're anywhere else in the world.
Probably a great resource and a great hub to see how you can get involved and be a part of making a difference.
(29:10):
Sidhara, I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find out more.
People can get in touch with Compassion and say, I want to serve my neighbor too.
But thank you for the insights that you've given and thank you so much for being a part of Bleeding Daylight.
It's been an absolute pleasure, Rodney.
Thank you so much for having me.
(29:32):
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net.
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Hello, I'm so thankful you've joined me today.
You'll find many more Bleeding Daylight episodes at bleedingdaylight.net.
Please help to push back the shadows by sharing this and other Bleeding Daylight episodes with those you care about.
(00:36):
Have you ever had the opportunity to visit somewhere you know incredibly well and see it through new eyes?
Today's guest visited the country where she was born, a place she's been to many times.
But this time, she had the opportunity to look beyond the familiar to see both heartache and hope.
(01:03):
Today, I'm thrilled to welcome someone who brings both personal connection and professional insight to our conversation about global challenges facing young women.
Sidhara Udalgama is a communications specialist at Compassion Australia.
She was born and raised in Sri Lanka, educated in England with a Master's in Organisational Psychology and is now based in Western Australia.
(01:28):
Last year, Sidhara returned to her homeland of Sri Lanka with Compassion, capturing powerful stories of girls confronting a range of barriers.
She has also travelled to places like Uganda and the Philippines, seeing both the challenges faced by women in those countries and the hope for a changed future.
Sidhara, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
(01:49):
Hello, Rodney.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's such a pleasure to be here.
I'm wondering, can you tell me and help me understand a little of your early years in Sri Lanka and how old you were when you left?
Yeah, absolutely.
I was born and raised in Sri Lanka.
My parents still live there, so Sri Lanka will always be home in many ways.
(02:11):
I was actually born, now this is interesting, I was born during the civil war that was taking place in Sri Lanka.
So I lived in the capital, so it's not like we were in the midst of any heavy fighting or anything like that.
But we did have challenges growing up in terms of there were bombs that went off close to our parents' workplaces.
We had security checkpoints and there was a whole heap of things that were happening in Sri Lanka at the time.
(02:35):
There was a lot of civil unrest that would come in waves over those early years.
I have to say, despite all of that, I had a very happy childhood and Sri Lanka is a wonderful place to grow up.
The culture is beautiful, the people are beautiful and anyone that's gone there knows that it's a wonderful place to be around.
There's so much warmth and just a love of people that I think is just wonderful to be surrounded with when you grow up.
(02:59):
I lived there until I was 19 and then when I went to university, that's when I left Sri Lanka and I moved to England or Nottingham in England.
I'm wondering how it felt to return to your homeland and to hear the stories of young women who have incredible potential but have never been given the opportunities that you've been able to experience.
(03:21):
I have gone back repeatedly across the years, but last year was my first ever time going with Compassion.
As you can imagine, it's a very different thing because you are there to not just visit home, but you have these incredible conversations with women and with young girls.
It was very confronting, to be honest.
Growing up, I always felt like I had opportunity.
(03:43):
I think you described it the best, Rodney, that question when you said, for me, I find that there's so much potential in all these young women, but there's just not enough opportunity.
That's where poverty comes to play such a huge role.
I think listening to those stories and listening to the dreams that they have in their heart and listening to the reality of their situations, it was heartbreaking, it was confronting, but it also left me hopeful because I saw the work that Compassion's partners were doing on the ground.
(04:15):
I thought, okay, there's actual hope for real change and real transformation in a lasting way.
It's not just tokenistic, but there's actual change happening on the ground.
It was almost a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions.
There was heartbreak, it was confrontational, but I left also hopeful.
It must have been amazing to see things differently.
(04:37):
I imagine that even as you were growing up, you knew that there were areas of poverty.
Some people think, well, that's different to where we live in the Western world, and yet in the Western world, we get so good at hiding poverty, whereas in some other countries, it's out there to be seen.
And yet, even having seen that growing up, there must have been things that surprised you.
(05:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
One of the interesting things growing up in a developing country, like you say, Rodney, is that you see the stark contrast almost side-by-side.
You'd see a huge skyscraper building, and then there is a little shack where you'd see a family trying to survive in a little one-bedroom shack almost side-by-side.
(05:21):
I wonder sometimes growing up in that environment whether you get desensitized to it in some ways, whereas in the Western world, you're right, we get good at hiding poverty or it's easier to pass by.
In the developing world, it's not easy to pass by because it stares you right in the face.
That was one of the questions I asked myself when I went back last year was, how much of poverty have I got desensitized to?
(05:43):
How much of it makes me numb because it's something that has almost become normal or part of the fabric of how we grew up?
There were things that surprised me in the sense that when I had conversations with young girls or when we were talking to some of the center directors at Compassion, people say it all the time, but there's more that unites us than divides us.
(06:04):
Regardless of how you've grown up or what resources you had, one of the truly human things or the human needs that we all carry is the need to matter, the need to be seen, the need to have a voice.
What poverty does is that it dampens that inhumanity, tells you that you are not worthy, tells you that you don't have a voice, that you don't matter, that your life doesn't count.
(06:28):
Talking to young girls, talking to some of the people that are around these young, vulnerable children every day, it's just surprising to me that situations and circumstances like poverty can almost pull that need out of you.
Poverty, it just struck it back home for me again that it's not just about material resources, but it's actually multidimensional in so many ways.
(06:52):
It affects you.
It affects you physically.
It affects you spiritually, emotionally, and cognitively.
It affects every part of who you are.
It's good to know that in theory, but to see it played out in real life, I think that was one of the things that surprised me the most.
That's one of the things that we often miss in the Western world, in that we tend to think that poverty is just a lack of stuff.
(07:16):
We've got stuff.
We can send stuff.
Problem solved.
And yet, as you say there, it speaks to the heart of a person.
And as we already touched on, for those young women or for people generally living in poverty, there's a potential, but they're made to believe there is no potential.
There is hope, but they're made to believe there is no hope.
(07:37):
And it must be a delight for you to see hope spring into the lives of some of these people.
That question actually takes me back to a conversation I had with a young girl.
I still remember her name, Shalini.
We were sat around this table in one of the Compassion Project Centres.
Compassion do this, it's almost like a workbook that every child does when they're about 12 and above.
(07:59):
And it's called My Plan for Tomorrow.
It is literally designed to tease out of kids or get them to think in a way that they can express their dreams and express their potential.
The centre director told us sometimes when they first come to this workbook and they're asked, you know, what are your dreams?
What do you want to do when you grow up?
It's almost like a blank.
(08:20):
They take a bit of time because often no one has ever asked them that question.
They never thought that they would be able to express the dreams in their heart.
Sometimes they haven't even learned to dream yet.
Sitting around this table, looking at these workbooks, it said My Plan for Tomorrow.
And it details, this is my goal for tomorrow.
This is what I want to be when I grow up.
But then it's very practical.
(08:41):
It's, these are my strengths.
These are the areas I need to improve in.
This is the plan that's going to help me achieve my goal.
Small, measurable steps forward in the right direction.
I sat listening to this group of girls and one in particular, Shalini, she said, I want to be a fashion designer when I grow up.
That took me by surprise because children who live in poverty don't often dream of becoming fashion designers.
(09:05):
It seems completely untenable.
I got so excited and I was like, tell me more about that.
She said that when she was younger, she used to love to draw.
And she still does.
She excitedly said that she had so many designs that she'd collected over the years.
And at the Compassion Center for big events, they would give her the opportunity to design costumes.
(09:26):
She was practicing and honing her skills and the Compassion Center was supporting her in achieving those dreams.
I just thought, oh my goodness, this is something that you don't hear often.
And in the areas that I've traveled to, it's not something I've heard very often.
Just allowing a child or giving permission to a child or giving opportunity to a child to dream and dream beyond the confines of what they see.
(09:50):
A dream in a way that is also tangible.
Every dream needs to have a plan.
And so in this way, just to see the hope in her eyes.
And she's 19 now.
So she is working her way towards this dream and she's studying for it.
The Compassion Centers are helping her.
They're supporting her.
And it's very exciting to see what her future could look like despite the start she's had in life.
(10:15):
We've talked generally about the effects of poverty in places like Sri Lanka.
But I know that you are specifically looking at the issues with young women.
What were some of the differences that you saw, the barriers that are specifically holding back young women?
Great question, Rodney.
We know that one in 10 women worldwide face poverty, which is a huge statistic in itself.
(10:41):
We find that women and children are disproportionately affected by poverty.
And there's a range of factors associated with that.
So often women have least access to education, least access to health care in some regions.
There are barriers like period poverty.
There's early child marriage.
There's sometimes family and spousal abuse that affects young girls and women.
(11:03):
And so there are a range of factors.
And there's also social and societal stigmas and discrimination and barriers in that way as well.
There's a whole range of factors that affects young women.
We find that to break those barriers, there needs to be an extra level of support and an extra level of intentionality in terms of overcoming those barriers to see a future that's free of poverty.
(11:28):
Traveling to Sri Lanka, one of the major, major, I guess, factors was period poverty.
And it's not something that we talk about a lot.
It's not something that's in the media a lot.
But it's a very real phenomenon.
It's period poverty in the sense where young girls or women around the world, they don't have either the education, the supplies or the hygiene facilities to manage their periods with safety and with dignity.
(11:53):
In Sri Lanka, because of period poverty, there are girls who miss school.
And when they miss school, they fall further and further behind in class.
So at that point, sometimes they just stop going to school altogether.
Whereas we know that education is one of the key factors in breaking this cycle of poverty.
What does having a safe and dignified toilet have to do with education?
(12:14):
Well, there are all these cultural nuances that means that a young girl can face so many factors when it comes to getting an education that keeps her from being in that classroom, which then affects her future in a way that you wouldn't think would be affected.
But it is.
And so there are all of these sometimes hidden challenges that aren't really overt, but actually do make a huge impact in a young girl being able to stay in school, get an education and then find a future that's different to how they grew up.
(12:47):
That's one of those things, as you touched on, that even installing a reasonable toilet facility at a local school or at a compassion center is more than just somewhere for someone to go to the toilet.
It has wide ranging effects.
And we often miss things like that for those of us that have never grown up in that situation, don't we?
(13:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
The stats in itself are staggering, Rodney.
Like it's estimated that it's at least 500 million girls and women globally lack access to sanitation facilities.
When I read that number, it absolutely blew my mind.
It's a basic human need.
And like you say, for us who grow up in different circumstances or perhaps in the Western world, these are not things that we even think would be a factor because it's present in our lives.
(13:36):
You know, we have public toilets.
When I went to visit Sri Lanka and we went to some of the rural parts of Sri Lanka, you find that for a lot of families, they all just grow up in one room.
There is no privacy.
Like the kitchen is in the same room that they don't even sometimes have a toilet.
Or there is a little shack that is far away outside of their actual environment that multiple families might use.
(14:00):
Sometimes that facility is not even there.
And so sometimes they go to the jungle when they need to use the bathroom facilities.
That's really dangerous for obvious reasons.
You just find that there are so many factors that affect young girls and young women growing up in poverty that you wouldn't even think.
There's a safety piece.
There's a dignity piece.
(14:20):
There's a privacy piece, especially when it comes to toilets and hygiene facilities.
And it just impacts a young girl in ways that we wouldn't even think of.
But it does play a really significant role in impacting her future.
Some of the things you were talking about there were the expectation on girls and young women.
(14:40):
And I imagine to break the back of that, you're not only having to let a young girl know that she has potential, that there is hope, but you're having to change society, which is a much bigger picture.
How do you start to go about something that big?
In very, very small steps is probably the best answer.
And I think the best example I can give of that is our local partners in countries like Sri Lanka.
(15:07):
And you're right.
It's not just telling a young girl that they have potential, but it is trying to break down the social stigmas, the cultural barriers that also exist within that vacuum, within that environment.
So, for example, with something like period poverty, there's so much misinformation and so much lack of access to the right information.
(15:28):
It's almost a taboo subject that is not talked about socially.
Young girls often grow up very confused.
They don't know what's happening to their bodies.
They don't know what the right things to do are.
Sometimes there are practices that have been passed down generation upon generation that are not sanitary.
And so there's an educational side that takes place with the families, with the leaders of society, the leaders in those communities to break down barriers and to put in the right kinds of information.
(15:58):
So it's a slow process.
But I think what's truly beautiful to see is that the local partner, they're already a part of that community.
So it's not like we're coming in from Australia and saying, hey, everyone, we've got some really new ideas about this.
We've got the right information.
Here you go.
Because that, we have found, it doesn't really work.
But I love that Compassion takes a locally-led approach.
(16:21):
It is the local community.
It's people that are employed by Compassion that are already local to that community.
They're the ones who are the changemakers.
They're the ones who are active in their community.
They're the ones who already had relational equity in this society.
They're the ones making change.
They're the ones taking the right kind of information.
They're the ones inviting families and parents and aunts and cousins and uncles and aunts.
(16:47):
Because it is a collectivist society, so it matters.
Those wider relational networks matter.
And they're the best position to understand those nuances.
And they're the ones making changes, breaking down those barriers, bit by bit, conversation by conversation, awareness program by awareness program, seminar by seminar.
And it is really a relational process that occurs in these societies.
(17:10):
I know you've been to some other countries with Compassion.
And we also know that things are different from country to country.
So, were there some other barriers that you saw for young women in some of the other countries that you've been to?
Uganda springs to mind pretty quickly.
I was there two years ago.
In Uganda, one of the stark realities at that time was the global food crisis.
(17:34):
It wasn't particular to young women per se.
But again, in the developing world, in some areas and in some cultures and in some societies, in that household, women eat last.
Even from a nutritional point of view, for young girls and for women in those societies, even in the midst of a global food crisis, you'd find that the precedence was always given to men in some cultures and in some instances.
(18:02):
There are interesting nuances that come into play culturally in some of those societies.
Another nuance was that we were introduced to child-headed households.
This is a household that has no adults in it.
So, there are no parents.
In this particular household, the mother had passed away and the father hadn't been seen for a while.
(18:23):
He was working away but probably wasn't quite in touch with his family.
And so, you had four children growing up with no adults to love them, to care for them, or to support them.
There were two young girls.
We actually went to meet a young girl who was enrolled in the compassion program.
Her name was Vicky.
And she was an amazing, amazing young girl.
(18:46):
To think that there are young girls growing up without the care of a parent, without the care of a loved one.
And I remember meeting Vicky for the first time.
And I don't know what it was but she just hugged me.
And then we were literally hugged.
We were hugging for the entire trip.
We were talking to some of the local staff there.
(19:06):
They were saying maybe there's a connection because she doesn't have her own mother.
Maybe there's just a connection there that she feels.
And it was a beautiful experience.
But I think about Vicky often.
And I think about just the life that she lives and the life that she has to lead in the absence of caregivers.
And I wonder about her future.
But I think what was beautiful when I talked to her was that the compassion staff had stepped in and they're really their second family.
(19:31):
They support them.
They love them.
They care for them.
And you can just see the bond that exists between the compassion staff and this wonderful group of siblings.
Vicky was saying that she wanted to be a teacher when she grows up.
It's wonderful that this girl who has no parents, who has no caregivers, actually has a dream for the future.
(19:53):
Her brother actually said that he wants to be a pastor.
There's all of these glimpses of hope and all of these glimpses of potential in these children that I think is wonderful to see despite the stark realities of the environment that they're growing up in.
One of the things that a lot of people ask when they hear about organisations that are helping those who live in poverty is, does it really work?
(20:17):
Compassion has been operating for over 70 years now.
So I imagine that there are some amazing stories of people's lives that have been changed, but not just people, but whole communities.
Are there any that perhaps come to mind that would really reassure people if they're thinking, is this something I can put my finances towards and help other people to receive hope?
(20:43):
It's a great question, and I think it's a valid question in people's minds because we want to make sure that when we are sowing into something or resourcing something, that it actually reaches the end result or the purported outcome in most ways.
One of the things for me is being able to be on the ground and actually seeing firsthand the impact in families, in children, in communities, getting to talk to the families that have been impacted.
(21:12):
I have so many stories I know that we don't have all day, so I'll stick to just a few or a couple and give you some of the high-level details of it.
But Sri Lanka last year was a really good example of that.
I know a lot of people think about compassion.
They think about child sponsorship, but compassion is more than just child sponsorship.
There's so many other programs that run parallel to the child sponsorship program that actually supplement and really complement the sponsorship intervention as well.
(21:38):
And so one of these is the Moms and Babies Program, one of the projects that we visited in Sri Lanka.
The stories that were coming out of the Moms and Babies Program, and not just for mothers and their children, but also for the entire community, it was really fascinating.
In Sri Lanka, sometimes you'd find that raising children is often seen as a woman's job, it's the mother's job, and the dads don't really get involved.
(22:02):
In this particular part of Sri Lanka, life is really hard.
It's a beautiful area, but a lot of the people in that community work as tea pluckers.
And it's long, it's arduous, it's physical labor, and you work rain and shine.
And then you come home and you try to put food on the table for your kids.
It is a hard life.
A lot of the men are driven to alcoholism just to get through the days.
(22:25):
The women, they suffer from depression, they suffer from mental health challenges.
We met this one lady, and she said she got to the point of pretty much she just had enough and she thought that she couldn't go on anymore.
She was just about to do something unthinkable when she heard a knock on the door.
It just so happened that it was her Compassion Project Moms and Babies tutor that knocked on the door at that exact same time.
(22:51):
And she came in, and they had a good relationship already.
And she talked about just feeling this immense sense of relief.
And obviously, Pramila, who was a Moms and Babies tutor, she knew that something wasn't quite right.
She was able to talk her down off the ledge.
They were able to get practical support, physical support.
They were able to get emotional support.
And so now, this family is not just in a place where they're thriving, but so many families in that area with similar situations have encountered this relational bond with Pramila.
(23:24):
Word of mouth has spread.
There's more families that have come together.
And now there's, I wouldn't say a community-wide revolution, but it's almost like this ripple effect that has spread through the community.
Even within that Moms and Babies program, there are dads that come now.
They're able to kind of invite parental units to come together.
Marriages are better because of this program.
(23:47):
Families are better.
Children are better because the parents are happier.
The parents have support.
Even in parenting, just basic skills as to how to raise your children or what kind of conversations to have, there is such a ripple effect from one intervention or even the sponsorship of one child.
You find like talking to Vicky.
Now, Vicky is enrolled in the Compassion Project in Uganda, but the family has such a great benefit.
(24:13):
There's relationship with the staff.
When Vicky's sponsor sends her gifts, the whole family benefits.
Then there's a communal aspect of that.
Abel was saying, Abel is Vicky's brother.
He was saying how with the help of the center staff, they've actually started income generation schemes.
This little 12-year-old boy, he's saying now his friends want to get involved.
(24:33):
The neighbors are asking questions.
Now, they're implementing some of those same strategies.
There are overt kind of ripple effects, but then there are also these little undercurrents that spread far and wide in ways that we wouldn't see unless you were on the ground.
There's just beautiful stories of transformation, beautiful stories of hope, not just for children and not just for their families, but also for communities, which is wonderful to see.
(24:58):
We seem to be living in a time of individualism, and unfortunately, that seems to have also crept into the church.
What would you say to those listening at the moment who are Jesus followers about our collective responsibility to actually care for and nurture those living in poverty?
(25:19):
Yeah.
My mind immediately goes to the parable of the Good Samaritan, and I think Jesus spells it out so clearly for us.
When we think about neighbor, often, I know for me, I think about the person who lives next door or the person down my street.
That's who I define as neighbor.
But when Jesus is asked about who is my neighbor, his definition is so much broader.
(25:42):
It's so much more vast than that.
And in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus almost points out to us that a neighbor is anyone that we see, anyone that we come across, anyone that needs our help.
The definition of neighbor is not just local, but it's also global.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to love and care for our neighbors, love our neighbors as we would ourselves.
(26:09):
And that definition of neighbor goes far beyond the people that sit on our cul-de-sac or sit down our road or live down the next street to us.
As followers of Jesus, we have a mandate from Jesus to care, not just locally, but also globally.
When I think about children like Vicky, when I think about children like Shalini, these are children who are growing up in different corners of the world.
(26:35):
And yes, we might never see them face to face, but actually our humanity is the same.
Perhaps there are people listening to this podcast that have children themselves and perhaps to identify with a culture that is actually collectivist.
And I think there's so much we can learn from cultures in the developing world, which are inherently collectivist cultures.
(26:58):
They do care about their neighbors.
They do care about the person down the street.
And for us, we are in a position to be able to help not just locally, but also globally in many senses of that word, whether that's praying for our global neighbors.
Because prayer is so important.
We know that prayer works.
We have seen prayer bring breakthrough.
So even if someone is like, well, I can't do anything financially, we can all pray.
(27:22):
We can all raise awareness.
We can all have conversations that are not just local, but also global.
Perhaps for some listeners, they have financial resource to be able to sow into the lives of people and vulnerable children that are not just local, but also global.
Reading the parable of the Good Samaritan, it's something that I come back to in the book of Luke often.
(27:42):
I would say, actually, maybe if someone is stirred by that, why not go away and actually read that portion of scripture again and allow the Holy Spirit to make it come alive in your heart again?
Perhaps there will be something that stirs within you to expand that definition of neighbor, not just to be local, but also to be global.
(28:02):
What I love about that parable of the Good Samaritan is that the Samaritan actually takes this man who has been beaten and bruised and takes him to the inn and says, I'm not the best place person to care for this beaten up man in an ongoing way.
I will resource it and I will continue to come back and resource until the healing is done.
(28:25):
And we get to do that through compassion.
We say we're not the best place people to help a young girl in Sri Lanka or Uganda or the Philippines or wherever, but we can continue to resource until the healing is complete.
If people are wanting to find out more about how they can do that, where's the easiest place for them to go?
(28:45):
Our website is probably the easiest place to go.
There's a variety of options of how you can resource, of how you can get involved and be a part of really what God is doing around the world.
Compassion.com.au if you're in Australia or Compassion.com if you're anywhere else in the world.
Probably a great resource and a great hub to see how you can get involved and be a part of making a difference.
(29:10):
Sidhara, I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find out more.
People can get in touch with Compassion and say, I want to serve my neighbor too.
But thank you for the insights that you've given and thank you so much for being a part of Bleeding Daylight.
It's been an absolute pleasure, Rodney.
Thank you so much for having me.
(29:32):
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net.
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