Arobanam Children Fund (ACF) was primarily set up to help Arobanam Boys Home, a small boy’s home in Killinochi, Sri Lanka. In 1995, the home which accommodated 38 children came extremely close to being shut down due to a serious lack of funding. A group of friends rallied together to raise as much money as possible to stop the homing being shut. As a result we raised over £1200 to enable Fr. James Pathinathan to continue caring for these parentless children. ACF was registered as a UK charity in 1999.

Even though we raised a significant sum of money, a one-off fund raising activity was not the long term solution. ACF decided to get involved in other well meaning people to setup homes in different areas in Vanni. The next home ACF start supporting was  Mahadeva Ashram in Killinochi. ACF didn’t stop there and we are currently supporting seven homes in the same area.

After the end of the war in May 2009 and on the advise of our patron Fr James Pathinathan ACF decided to expand the operation outside of Sri Lanka and made changes to the our constitution to cover countries outside Sri Lanka. To date ACF has funded projects in India and Nepal.

ACF has funded capital projects during the tsunami in 2004 and helped with relief work other natural disasters.

Currently, ACF UK are helping around 500 children in Sri Lanka and India under ACF’s sponsorship scheme. This number of children fluctuates throughout the year due children often moved different areas to reunite with extended family members.

Through our sponsorship scheme, 24 children have successfully entered University. ACF now also have a programme to support other university students and the current total is 55 students.