Walk from the Heart

Students of Gateway College Colombo will be organising a ‘Walk from the Heart’ on Saturday, 25 July, to raise awareness of children’s heart disease and to support the on-going projects of The Children’s Heart Project of Sri Lanka which works with the Lady Ridgeway Hospital to improve the services available to children with heart problems. The walk will start at 7:30 a.m. from Lady Ridgeway Hospital and end in the school premises in Rajagiriya.  

‘Walk from the Heart’ is the principal community service to be carried out by Gateway College this year, and the school has encouraged students to create banners, placards and posters to be used during the walk to raise awareness about children’s heart disease and has given each class a target to raise funds for the support of the Children’s Heart Project.  There will be rewards by the school for classes that raise the highest contribution and make the biggest impact!

The Children’s Heart Project of Sri Lanka is encouraging students and their parents to make pledges to continue to support the project after the walk. Parents can pledge a regular contribution to the project that will complement the funding from Government and go towards consumables, equipment, infrastructure and support to families. Children can make a ‘Birthday pledge’ – foregoing their birthday cake, birthday presents or birthday party and contributing instead to save the life of a child with heart disease. Senior students can find different innovative, non-monetary ways of supporting the work of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital with their labour, knowledge and expertise.  

Congenital heart disease is a major killer in children under five years of age. Six to eight new born babies out of every thousand born in Sri Lanka are born with congenital heart disease.  This means at least 2,500-3,000 children every year – most of whom will need either a surgical or catheter based treatment within the first year of their life. More than 90% of these children are treated at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital, where a cardiac program was initiated in 2007. The hospital performs about 650 catheter based interventions, and 900 cardiac surgeries every year. Without this treatment many of these children will not live to celebrate their first birthday and many will die before they reach adulthood. But even then there is a long waiting list because there are thousands of children awaiting surgery. 

The Children’s Heart Project was set up by private individuals, to help save Sri Lankan children with heart diseases. It is a registered charity approved by the Government of Sri Lanka, incorporated in 1993. The project’s aim is to increase the number of successful children’s heart operations performed annually and ultimately to eliminate the long waiting list. The project supports the cardiac program of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital, because it is the only tertiary care referral centre for such children in Sri Lanka. 

Patients come to the cardiac centre from far off places such as Walapane or Polonnaruwa, and are treated completely free of charge. The project has provided financial support to construct and refurbish certain areas of the cardiac complex and purchase equipment and consumables whenever they are needed. The Children’s Heart Project is very grateful to the students, teachers and parents of Gateway College for supporting them. More information about the project is available on www.childrensheartproject.lk.