Makola Muslim Orphanage complete 50 years of service

By Mohamed R. Farook

Makola Muslim Orphanage is celebrating its Golden Jubilee, having completed a very successful period of 50 years of service to the Muslim community of Sri Lanka in general and Muslim orphans in particular.

The Makola Muslim Orphanage, a non-profit institution, has been in existence since 1962. From its humble beginnings, it has grown to be one of the largest and orphanages in Sri Lanka.

The orphanage occupies Makola (Anwarul Uloom Arabic School) and at Malwana (Yathama School). Both institutions are managed by principals, tutorial staff and wardens under the supervision of the Board of Trustees.

The Makola Muslim Orphanage (MMO) does not cater only to the physical wellbeing of the orphans. A cherished desire of its founders and one of its primary objectives has been the spiritual and academic well being of the orphans.

This, they believed, was paramount to mould the children to be worthy citizens with sound religious, technical and cultural training.  In keeping with these beliefs, every child at the orphanage is provided with some form of education. Each child has a busy daily schedule, which includes all the daily prayers.

The original orphanage is located at Makola, 15 kilometres southeast of Colombo. It commenced operations in 1962 with a two storied building on one and a quarter acres of land. At its inception, the orphanage had just 16 orphans. By 1984 the orphanage had 269 inmates and the Board of Management recognised the fact that the orphanage was unable to increase its intake of orphans due several shortcomings and drawbacks.

The existing facilities were not sufficient to further expand its benevolent services to a wider segment of Sri Lanka’s Muslim community.

 Therefore, a second orphanage was constructed at Malwana, with facilities to house a further 1,000 orphans. Work on this project was completed in 1994, and consequently the MMO had the physical infrastructure to accommodate 1,250 orphans.

The Orphanage is governed by an elected Board of Trustees, comprising of respected members of the Muslim community.

MMO gained recognition as an Approved Charity in 1966 and was subsequently incorporated by an Act of Parliament on 19 May 1983. This Act may be cited as the Makola Muslim Orphanage (Incorporation) Act No. 19 of 1983.

As of 2011 there were approximately 600 orphans in the orphanage. The children range from the very young to the late teens. The younger children have special wardens, providing appropriate attention and care for their age.