The Congregation was founded by Fr. P J Triest in Belgium in 1807. He
was so committed to the poor in his native country that he became known
as the St. Vincent de Paul of Belgium. Because of his love of the work
of St Vincent he called his Brothers the ‘Brothers of St
Vincent’. However, the people of Ghent held the work of the
Brothers amongst them in such high regard that they gave the Brothers
the new name of ‘Brothers of Charity’ which has
been theirs ever since.
The Brothers came to Sri Lanka in 1989 and set up the Brothers of
Charity Nisansala Services in 1991 when they opened the newly
constructed centre at Tudella. Year 2000 this Services was expanded up
to Negombo. There are now two main Service locations - at Tudella and
Negombo - providing a wide range of supports to families of children
and young adults with a learning disability.
Today we provide training and care for children and young adults with a
learning disability / mentally handicapped in our training centres both
Tudella [Ja-Ela] and Negombo.
Our day to day training programs consist of Literacy/Numeracy,
Health and Hygiene, Music and
Dance, Social training, Self help skills, Hand work, Cooking, Speech
Therapy, physiotherapy, Vocational training, Home based training,
community based programs .etc.
Every year we have a number of public events to create awareness and
promote a better understanding of people with a learning difficulty.
The Brothers of Charity services provide professional support and staff
training to a number of organizations and next year we have been
invited by groups in the Gampaha region to conduct public awareness
programs to educate the general public about people with a learning
difficulty.
