Off The Field

Murali-Kushil Gunasekera’s FOG Invites Olympic Medalist For Swimming Clinics

Written by Rohit Pawar

World renowned Olympian Kim Vandenberg, who is currently in Sri Lanka, conducted a swim clinic at the Foundation of Goodness (FOG)  in Seenigama of Hikkaduwa last week.

She will conduct swim clinics until the 22nd of this month at FOG, A NGO Of World’s greatest bowler Muttiah Muralitharan and Former Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) secretary Kushil Gunasekera.

Kimberly Vandenberg (born December 13, 1983) is an American competition swimmer and Olympic medalist. She grew up in Moraga, California, and swam for Campolindo High School and Orinda Aquatics. She was a member of the bronze-medal-winning U.S. team in the women’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She also won silver medals at the 2005 World University Games, and at the 2007 World Swimming Championships in the women’s 200-meter butterfly. Four years later, she won a gold medal in the same event at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara.

The FOG was established in 1999 and has worked extensively following the 2004 tsunami that devastated the lives of thousands of Sri Lankans to develop a one of a kind holistic rural community development model which today delivers a wide range of programmes to over 15,000 beneficiaries every month from 300+ villagers in the South, North and East of Sri Lanka, free of charge, via our 30 empowerment activity sectors which include Arts & Multimedia, Children, Enterprise & Empowerment, Environment, Housing, Dental, Medical & Psycho-social support, Scholarships, Sports Development & Management, Sustainable Income Generation, Village Heartbeat Empowerment Project, Village Welfare & Development and Volunteer Management.

When the years of conflict came to an end, the Foundation of Goodness extended its development activities to the post-war North and East of Sri Lanka and have been working in the North since January 2011, reaching over 39,000 beneficiaries to date, with uninterrupted monthly visits to introduce, maintain and expand a variety of programmes including village infrastructure development, sports development, libraries, IT centres, schools development, water and sanitation projects, livelihood and vocational programmes, micro finance projects and have distributed over 4,040 bicycles to needy beneficiaries in partnership with Sri Lankan Cricketer Kumar Sangakkara and his ‘Sanga’s Bikes for Life’ programme.

The FOG has also branched out to offer its key courses and resources to distant rural villages via 10 Village Heartbeat Empowerment Centres.

 

About the author

Rohit Pawar

An Independent I.T. Security Expert, Geek, Blogger & Passionate Programmer.

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