Mithuru Mithuro Drug Rehabilitation Center

Initiated in 1984, Mithuru Mithuro, which itself means “compassionate friend,” was started primarily to help the poor rural communities in Sri Lanka, and particularly the youth. But in 1987, when the judiciary directed four young drug offenders who were on parole to Rev. Bodi, the humble shack nestling on a hill against the Sinharaja Rainforest became a halfway house, providing in-house treatment for prisoners with drug offenses before they re-enter society. Thus, the Mithuru Mithuro Movement became the first Buddhist drug rehabilitation center in Sri Lanka. Today, there are 400 men undergoing treatment at four different locations, aged between 16 and 60 years old. 

Rev. Bodi recalls his childhood experience: “As a child, I lived near Welikada Prison in Colombo. I used to see prisoners being led, bound by chains around their hands and legs. I was deeply troubled by the treatment meted out to them and decided that one day I would do something that would help those marginalized by society to live with dignity, be they be prisoners or drug addicts. I want to create a virtuous society, a society where compassion, tolerance, gentleness, honesty, wisdom, and equanimity thrive to the fullest and where people disdain all that is harmful to others”. Even as a young monk at the Pathaka Buddhist Training Centre for Novice Monks, Rev. Bodi was already working with convicted prisoners. 

He has made it his mission that those who come Mithuru Mithuro abandon their addictions and lead happy and meaningful lives. To equip himself for the challenge, Rev. Bodi traveled to New York to receive training in the Daytop program, one of the oldest and most successful drug treatment programs in the United States. Based on the therapeutic community model, the program emphasizes the role of peer interaction in a “supportive emotional community in which people feel secure but at the same time are held strictly accountable for their behavior.”