Colombo Court Blog The Hotel
A visit to the Boys’ Industrial Home before Perahera
Each year, before the Esala Perahera, our team take a car load of food to a children’s home in Colombo. It has become the quietest tradition we have.
The Boys’ Industrial Home is a residential home in Colombo for boys who have been abandoned, neglected or placed there by families going through a hard time. It is run with very little, and it depends on the goodwill of the city around it.
Every year, in the weeks before the Esala Perahera, a few of our team fill a car with staples and drive over. Milk powder, sugar, dhal, tinned fish, rice: the things a kitchen feeding a lot of growing boys gets through fastest. The visit is timed for the festival season, so that the home can enjoy it the way families across the country do.
Why staples and not a party
Because that is what the home asked for. A festive lunch would be gone by evening; a month of dhal and milk powder is a month the home does not have to find money for. The staff there told us the first time that the visit meant more than the parcels, and we have kept it up since, with the same car and, mostly, the same people.
Part of a habit
A hotel is a business, but it is also a household in the middle of a city, and households look after their neighbours. Our team give plants away on World Tourism Day, join beach clean-ups on World Environment Day, and have taken linen to the children’s ward at IDH when dengue filled it. None of it is large. All of it is regular, which we think matters more. The rest of what we do is on our sustainability page.
If you are in Sri Lanka in July or August, the Perahera itself is worth the trip to Kandy, and we can help you plan it.
