CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Join us in preserving and protecting the stunning and pristine Mawella Bay, and the heritage communities that live and work within her. Situated in Sri Lanka, one of the world’s designated 36 global biodiversity hotspots, the area and her communities are under constant threat from ever-expanding, environmentally-disastrous development.

Guardians of the Bay.

We are calling for funding & contributions that will help to protect this precious and increasingly rare natural environment, whilst preserving the ancient heritage of fishing villages and communities. By ensuring livelihoods from high-value, low-volume tourism, we aim to create a replicable-model that focuses on community-centric destination development

Why a Foundation for Mawella?

Sri Lanka’s coastal tourism development has been largely unplanned, under-regulated, and inconsistent, leaving both marine and terrestrial environmental ecosystems, and the communities that live in and around them, at huge risk.

Hyper-local examples of this approach to development have shown the destruction that can be caused in under a decade. Recently, this has only been worsened by the effects of climate change and the 2022 economic crisis. The need for civic action to protect Sri Lanka’s coastal regions and their communities is more pressing than ever before.

Help us to:

Uphold the very best global standards for coastal development & management.

Provide proof of concept that a combined approach of environmental conservation & community preservation can provide effective circular solutions, and sustainable prosperity for all.

Community

The MBF’s (Mawella Bay Foundation) top priority is to protect and empower the bay’s local communities. We have engaged an implementing partner for our programme, one of Sri Lanka’s leading not-for-profit, community empowerment organizations, the internationally renowned FoG (Foundation of Goodness).

Our MBF Village Heartbeat Centre will provide all of the proven core initiatives at the heart of every FoG centre, along with a unique additional programme based on providing further professional skills training, identified in our hyper-local market research. Our uniqueness lies in our ability to provide graduates with direct employment in local tourism businesses, and offer a direct market through which to sell locally produced goods and services.

Co-designing tailored programs with FoG, along with proven Village Heartbeat Centre initiatives, to meet Mawella’s Unique Needs

Conservancy

Sri Lanka’s coastal regions, including Mawella Bay, face significant biodiversity loss and habitat destruction, extensive erosion and pollution, and a multitude of other tourism-related environmental challenges. Despite this, the bay has been overlooked in state-backed conservation efforts, as their very limited resources have to be deployed and prioritised at a national level.

The MBF has commissioned biodiversity scoping surveys of the bay area and engaged leading Sri Lankan scientists & environmental organizations to determine the best approach to establish the conservancy and become an officially designated environmentally protected area.

We need your help & financial contributions to establish an officially designated EPA.(Environmental Protection Area)

THE FOUNDATION OF GOODNESSS

VILLAGE HEARTBEAT CENTRE CORE INTIATIVES.

Community

The Directors of the MBF have contributed 75% of the seed capital and the funding required to launch the MBF’s core Community & Conservancy initiatives (USD 65,000), as well as guaranteeing the annual running, administrative, and staffing costs of the community programmes for the 3 years (USD 155,000). As an organization, we believe deeply in long-lasting, effective change and work on the premise that we don’t launch any new programmes until we have secured the funding required.

We need to raise an additional USD 60,000 to launch the community programme, and then approximately USD 20,000 annually thereafter to run the core community initiatives.

Conservancy

The MBF has begun the essential work needed to identify the most significant threats to the environmental health of the Mawella Bay area.

By commissioning leading Sri Lankan scientists & established environmental organizations, we hope to equip the programme with the expertise needed to identify the best processes & become included in state-backed networks.

The immediate challenge is to establish the EPA, the long-term challenge, to enforce it. However, significant financial funding is required to implement this work, and that’s why we need your help.

WHY SUPPORT US?

We are calling for contributions from every stakeholder; from local land-owners and tourist-business operators, to second-home owners and visiting tourists.

Why? Because we all have one thing in common. We are here because of the outstanding natural beauty and environment of the Mawella Bay area, and for the privilege of meeting, living and working alongside her heritage communities.

At a time when our philanthropic money is called for at every turn, investing in the Mawella Bay Foundation will guarantee that your donation is spent where it is needed most.

Help us to protect the areas that you love, be a part of producing effective and long lasting change.