Overview

Reaching Beyond - Sri Jinarathana Vocational Training Centre The Gangaramaya Temple has stepped beyond the standard expected of a place of worship to become a model institution and a beacon of light to those trudging through life’s journey. Its founders and successors, have, through the Sri Jinarathana Vocational Training Centre lit countless paths, enlightened minds and developed skills. The need for a meaningful and resourceful intervention among the country’s youth, who, despite the privilege of free education, drop out of school due to poverty and lack of support and facilities, was felt strongly during the most challenging days of the 1970s. Unbeknownst, young people who drop out of school are left in limbo, given their social status and lack of resources, have few opportunities to pursue or receive training in a vocation for employment. These are young, energetic and employable youth that are an asset to the country, who left bereft, become fodder to unscrupulous elements and are likely to end up, in the absence of intervention and hope for the future, in the trenches of a sordid life. And in response to this national conundrum, the Sri Jinarathana Vocational Training Centre was founded in 1978 by Venerable Devundara Vacissara, ably supported by Venerable Galboda Gnanissara to offer school dropouts hope of a better future by equipping them with requisite skills required for employment, whose vision and mission to ensure the greater good has been faithfully carried into the future, with added impetus from the current chief priest. Managed by a governing council, the Sri Jinarathana Vocational Training Centre, since its inception has successfully trained over 700,000 young people in a range of skills, and currently has on offer over 50 technical courses in electronics, motor mechanics, tinkering and painting, welding and electrical wiring and blacksmithery, in addition to introducing new courses to go hand in hand with changing requirements of the job market