When the 87 Initiative started its work in 2009, our focus was primarily to keep the children at school as long as possible. We had limited experience and had no or little local presence and keeping the children at school was the best we could hope for at that time.

With increased presence in Sri Lanka and learnings from over 15 years of operational experience, we recognise that financial support alone is not going to enable these students to break the cycle of poverty. Family situation (broken marriages or disengaged parent(s), abuse), social issue (caste) play a big role in keeping kids in school.

We can only address these social issues indirectly as we are not set up to address social issues. Further some of these issues are deep rooted in the society and takes a long time to make an impact.

Here are some of the efforts the 87 Initiative carrying out to keep the kids in school:

• Field officers monitor our sponsored students to ensure there is accountability and responsibility from students, their families and the schools. If we notice any performance or behavioural issues, our field officers either visit the school or the student at home to address the issue. This way we aim to capture any issues early.
• We make it clear to the students that the sponsorship is not free money: they come with conditions. Students must attend school regularly: their attendance is monitored. They must submit their term report cards on time. If children have performance issues, we generally provide extra assistance.
• Our field officers regularly get regular updates on students from the schools during their school visits. This informal information gathering plays an important role in our performance monitoring. 
• Committee members visit the schools at least one a year. During these visits we emphasise the importance of education, attitude, discipline and hard work. Highlight the significance of these to break the cycle of poverty. 
• During school visits the committee members give one on one time to all students. This allows us to individually encourage them, find out what support they need as well as give them the hard word if necessary. 
• Our field officers have a good understanding of the local situations, and they have the local know how of what is going on in the families, which allows us to address the real situations.
• Science education at higher grade levels bring about better job opportunities. We are encouraging students to follow science streams where possible. We take in 100+ students each year after the release of GCE OL results, who choose to do Science streams in the GCE A/L.
• Sponsors are encouraged to stay in touch with their sponsored students, which motivates the students and sometime identifies issues that are affecting the performance and address them. Some of these kids have either one or no parents living with them. In these situations, the sponsor can act as a mentor, parent figure. This helps the studnets significantly.
• Sponsoring sporting activities. Sports gives a sense of community and belonging to the children which keeps them at school. It helps them to develop a sense of self and teaches discipline, hard work and keep them motivated. This helps when they leave school.
• Infrastructure projects. We have been funding school infrastructure such as water facilities, computer, photo copiers etc. We are now starting to other projects which will help students access to school. An example of this is the recent construction of 210m stairs at Fairfield Division, Talawakele. In the absence of these stairs students had to take a 3km detour adding significant travel time or risk the slippery slope during rainy season.
  
  

We are in the early stages of a long journey to break the cycle of poverty, where we are working against many societal and economic factors. However, we are heartened by the significant progress we have made from where we started.

Social issues and 25 years of war have entrenched poverty into certain parts of society. The Sri Lankan economy performing badly has made the situation worse. These structural barriers cannot be broken in a few years. It requires long term effort.

Having said that, our successes are helping to get our message across more easily. When a child sees their neighbour doing well, they are motivated to follow their footsteps. We are slowly building momentum and the lessons we learnt in Killinochi area are being applied in Mulaitheevu, Mannar, Up Country, Jaffna Islands and remote parts of Eastern Province.