Meththa Rehabilitation Foundation: Restoring Mobility, Dignity and Hope Across Sri Lanka

For thousands of Sri Lankans living with limb loss and physical disabilities, access to quality rehabilitation services remains a significant challenge.

- PROF S P LAMABADUSURIRA, CHAIRMAN AND Dr B PANAGAMUWA, First TRUSTEE

Yet, for more than three decades, our organisation has quietly transformed lives through innovation, compassion and community-based care. The Meththa Rehabilitation Foundation Guarantee Limited (MRFGL), supported by the Meththa Foundation-UK and in partnership with the Manitha Neyam Trust, the LEBARA Foundation and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Jaffna, emerged as one of Sri Lanka’s most effective voluntary rehabilitation service providers, restoring mobility, independence and dignity to some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens.

The Foundation’s roots stretch back to 1994, when a group of expatriate Sri Lankan professionals in the United Kingdom recognised the severe shortage of rehabilitation services available to disabled persons in Sri Lanka. Drawing upon their expertise in rehabilitation medicine and allied healthcare professions, they established the Meththa Foundation-UK with a simple but powerful vision: to provide affordable, high-quality prosthetic and rehabilitation services to those who needed them most.

What began as an effort to recycle and repurpose high-quality prosthetic components donated by the UK’s National Health Service has evolved into a comprehensive rehabilitation network serving communities across the island.

Clinical services commenced in Sri Lanka in 1995 through a mobile outreach programme that initially supported injured soldiers and later expanded to civilians affected by conflict and disability. The majority of them were victims of land mines. In 2010, the Sri Lankan arm of the organisation was formally registered as the Meththa Rehabilitation Foundation Guarantee Limited, strengthening its ability to deliver sustainable services nationwide.