Plus - People and events

People and events

Duke of Edinburgh awards: Asia Pacific Regional T4T in Sri Lanka

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development, Sri Lanka in collaboration with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award International Asia-Pacific Regional Office of Australia and the National Youth Award Authority, Sri Lanka recently conducted the three day Asia Pacific Regional T4T 2011 Sri Lanka under the patronage of Minister of Youth Affairs & Skills Development Dullas Alahapperuma.

Ms. B.A. Harshani Ganegoda receives the Gold Award from Regional Director IAYP, Sue Walker

Two one-day Regional Award Leaders Training (ALT) programmes were also held at the Club Hotel Dolphin, Waikkal with simultaneous interpretation in three languages (English, Sinhala and Tamil) for the first time in the history of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award International for Young People (IAYP).
The Asia-Pacific Regional T4T 2011 Sri Lanka is the first International Award Leaders Workshop held in this decade to build up the capacity of the Asia- Pacific region to become the programme of choice for young people worldwide (website : www.intaward.org) .This unique educational endeavor was a part of the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the inaugural award presentation held in Sri Lanka, under the distinguished patronage of the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, the Founder of the International Award in 1981.

Veteran award leaders from ten countries (Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) were represented at the programme. Veteran teacher and trainer Saman Amarasinghe was the Director, Asia-Pacific T4T 2001 Sri Lanka. Regional Manager of programme, Asia-Pacific Region( Australia) Rob Oliphant, and Head of Operation, International Award for Young People, UK Major Timothy Smith, served as International Trainers for the refresher training programme for the award leaders.

Thirty young people received the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award International at the gala dinner of Asia-Pacific Regional T4T 2011 Sri Lanka held at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Colombo. The Chief Guest was Secretary, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development S.S.Hewapathirana. Regional Director, IAYP, Sue Walker, and Chairman, National Youth Services Council Lalith Piyum Perera, awarded the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Gold Award and Certificate to Miss K.D. Preethi Kanchana of Lindsay Girls School and Miss B.A. Harshani Ganegoda of Sirimavo Bandaranayake Girls School.

Honour for Sir Desmond in Britain

Sri Lankan Sir Desmond de Silva, QC, born in Kandy has been further honoured by being made a member of Her Majesty's Privy Council in Britain. With this honour he is now the Right Honourable Sir Desmond de Silva,PC QC.

Members of the Privy Council are mostly former Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers. The primary role of a Privy Councillor is to be available to give advice to the Sovereign. The last Sri Lankan to be conferred with this honour was the late Sir John Kotelawala in 1954.

Last year, Sir Desmond was one of three international experts chosen by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate and report on the Gaza flotilla incident. He is the son and grandson of former MPs for Kandy, the late Fred. E. de Silva who was also once Mayor of Kandy and Sri Lankan Ambassador to France and Switzerland. His grandfather was the late George. E de Silva, who was Minister of Health before Independence and Minister of Fisheries and Industries in Sri Lanka's first post Independence government.

His family has been a legal dynasty for over a hundred years. Sir Desmond was educated both at Trinity College, Kandy and at Oxford and was elected a Councillor for the biggest ward in the city of London. He was also a member of Margaret Thatcher's think tank. He has been both international prosecutor and defence counsel having saved many personalities from execution. He was retained by the current Prime Minister of Kenya for his defence when he faced a capital charge of treason in 1981.

Asked if he would return to Sri Lanka, he said "I have already been back three times this year. I would like to spend more time in Sri Lanka but I would like something to do. I would be willing to serve on the Board of any reputable company as a non-executive director. This would be the perfect excuse for me to return to the land of my birth."

Check out the updated line-up for GLF 2012

With just 10 days left to go, the HSBC Galle Literary Festival now has its final programme up and its box office open. Several new participants have been confirmed, most notably Indian politician and author Shashi Tharoor. A onetime contender for the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations, Tharoor is a prolific columnist and has several books including Nehru: The Invention of India, India: From Midnight to the Millennium and the novels Riot, The Great Indian Novel and Show Business to his credit.

Shashi Tharoor Stephen Kelman

Also included among the list of recently confirmed participants is Ellah Allfrey, Deputy Editor of the literary magazine, Granta and photographer and Serendipity publisher Juliet Coombe.

The award winning Sinhala poet Buddhadasa Galappatty will be featured, as well as the poet and journalist Malinda Seneviratne, whose collections Threads and The Underside of Silence were both shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award.

English Professor Neluka Silva, the author of the recently published novel 'The Iron Fence’ will be both participant and moderator.

Fans of Stephen Kelman - who confessed to feeling like he had 'gate crashed' the 2011 Man Booker Prize nominations - will be happy to listen to the author talk about his literary debut Pigeon English. The much hyped novel about gang life in inner-city London was included in best new novel lists from Waterstones to the Guardian. Another big draw is likely to be British critic, novelist and biographer, D.J Taylor who won the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award for his book on George Orwell. His newest novel, Derby Day, was longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize and had critics describing it as "richly redolent of the novels of Wilkie Collins, Dickens and Thackeray". From across the Atlantic is prize winning American novelist and short story writer Susan Minot. Among her published works is the novel Evening for which she went on to co-write a screenplay with Michael Cunningham.

Download the complete programme at www.galleliteraryfestival.com. Events are spread over four days from January 18 - 21. In Colombo you'll find the box office at Barefoot, 704 Galle Road Colombo 3 (Weekdays 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.- 3 p.m). In Galle: Mama's Rooftop Cafe, 76 Leyn Baan Street Galle Fort (Weekdays 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-3 p.m).

Printcare : Fifth year of support

The HSBC Galle Literary Festival 2012 from January 18 -22 will be supported by Printcare for the fifth consecutive year.

Printcare's partnership with the HSBC Galle Literary Festival enables the festival to achieve their original mandate of bringing internationally acclaimed authors to a wide local audience, thus aiding the development of tourism, as well as giving due precedence to the rich and diverse cultural heritage of Sri Lanka. The Festival through its Children's Outreach Programme is able to extend its programming to school children and teachers from all regions and cultural communities in Sri Lanka.

Printcare has a long standing commitment to improving the level of education and learning in Sri Lanka and is strongly supportive of the President's vision of making Sri Lanka a knowledge hub. By supporting the festival Printcare continues to support the learning of the English language in Sri Lanka.

Following the success of last year's festival programme, Printcare uses its experience and expertise to work with the GLF team to produce a book with creative design, well written content, and quality printing and finishing, making it a collector's item. This year's book continues to include information on the heritage of Galle, the festival background, programmes, information on participants and moderators, festival venues and a current and comprehensive guide to Galle and its surroundings. There are useful additions such as recipe cards, bookmarks and a pull out map.

The only printer selected as a Business Superbrand, Printcare is internationally known for being the global leader in the supply of tea bag packaging, supplying nearly all of the world's most reputed tea brands. Printcare is now a diversified Group which is also involved in printing and packaging for the apparel and FMCG sectors, security printing for the Lotteries and Telecom industries, printing and binding for the publishing and education industries, and specialized digital media and learning services.

Double celebrations for Sri Lankan School in Doha

It was double celebrations at the Sri Lankan School in Doha last month when the school celebrated its 10th anniversary and held its annual Awards Day with Sri Lankan Ambassador to Qatar Jayantha Palipana as the chief guest.

The ambassador was welcomed by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the School Kumudu Fonseka, Principal Mrs. Ayesha Ruhuman and Vice Principal Prasad Puvimanasinghe.

Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the School Kumudu Fonseka emphasized the value of striving to learn Sinhala urging the children never to forget their roots. Principal Mrs. Ruhuman recalled the school's humble beginnings with 10 students and three teachers.

The school now has 610 students and 42 academic and 23 non-academic staff. She said there was a huge waiting list to gain admission to the school. "Although the school follows an international curriculum we emphasize and maintain respect to our motherland by adhering to our traditions and culture, instilling in students moral values which will form the main foundation for personality building," the principal said in her address.

The Sri Lankan Ambassador to Qatar Jayantha Palipana congratulated the Principal and staff of the school very warmly for doing a tremendous job.

Events album

Lecture by Sri Lankan Astrophysicist

Dr. Gayandhi De Silva of the Anglo Australian Observatory will deliver a lecture on 'Galactic Archaeology’ on Thursday, January 12 at 11 a.m. at the University of Moratuwa. Understanding how galaxies form and evolve is a major area of current research. Within a broad framework of heirarchical structure formation, we still have only a vague idea of how galaxies like our own Milky Way formed and evolved.

The expanding field of Galactic Archaeology aims to reconstruct fossil stellar substructures of the Milky Way, in order to develop a physical sequence of events that led to the present day Galaxy. By exploiting the chemical information locked within the Galaxy's stars we use the 'chemical tagging' technique to undertake this Galactic excavation.

In her talk, Dr. De Silva will give an overview of this field, discuss results from the chemical tagging technique, and point towards upcoming large projects that will provide an unprecedented view of the Galaxy.

For more information please contact kavanr@gmail.com , or phone Thilina at 0716245545.
Lecture on ‘A Lost Meditation Tradition from the Silk Road’

Dr. Lance Cousins, former President of the Pali Text Society, Great Britain will deliver a lecture titled 'Flowing Milk: A Lost Meditation Tradition from the Silk Road", on Tuesday, January 10 at 5 p.m. at the Gamini Dissanayake auditorium, No. 96, Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha, Colombo 7.
The lecture is about a Sanskrit text on meditation discovered in Central Asia transmitted through the Silk Road.All are welcome.

Lecuture on Marine Protection

Eminent British marine biologist Dr. Nicolas Pilcher will speak on 'Dugong Conservation and Marine Protection' at a lecture organised by Dilmah Conservation on Thursday, January 12, from 6 p.m. at the Wimalasurendra Auditorium, Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, No. 120/15, Wijerama Mawatha, Colombo 7.

Dr. Pilcher has a career spanning over 20 years in marine research and conservation projects throughout the Indo-Pacific. He is the Founder and Director of the Marine Research Foundation, a private NGO based in Sabah, Malaysia, which implements marine research projects in several countries spanning the Indian and Pacific oceans. His research is particularly related to marine turtle and dugong conservation, and how they are impacted by fisheries bycatch.

Dr. Pilcher is a past-President of the International Sea Turtle Society and the Co-Chair of the Marine Turtle Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature - IUCN, the global authority on sea turtle biology and conservation issues.

His work has helped revise management interventions by government agencies as related to hatcheries and turtles and to develop strategic action plans for the conservation of turtles in countries such as Eritrea, Pakistan, Qatar, Malaysia, and regionally as part of the Sulu Sulawesi Seascape programme and the Coral Triangle Initiatives.

The Epiphany Carol Service at St. Michael & All Angels

The Epiphany Carol Service by the Choir of St. Michael and All Angels, Polwatte, Colombo 3 will be held today in the Church at 6 p.m. Following the Epiphany, "Introit" by Herbert Sumsion, the service will commence with a procession from the east wing of the church.

The lessons are from the Bible, together with poems and readings for Epiphany.
The choir will sing carols suitable for the season interspersed with popular carols for choir and congregation. The choir is directed by Dr. Lalith Perera with Denham Pereira at the Organ and Kevin McCrae as soloist. All are welcome.

St. Sylvester’s old boys to form arts and media group

Old boys of St. Sylvester's College Kandy involved in Arts and Media will meet today to form an Arts and Media group at the College Auditorium. The meeting will be held at 10.30 a.m. Further details could be obtained by contacting Anura Dissanayake on 0714-430698 or N.E.G.P. Chaminda on 0777-612100.

SPM Walk by past pupils

The SPM Walk and trade and fun fair organized by the Past Pupils' Association of St. Paul's Milagiriya will be held on January 14 at the Henry Pedris ground from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m to mark the school's 125th anniversary. For tickets contact 0777-683022 or 3150402.

Award for Vijaya Corea

Former Director General of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and well known compere Dr. Vijaya Corea received an award from the Voice of Lanka Foundation in recognition of his significant and major contribution to Media as a pioneer in Radio Broadcasting at a ceremony at the BMICH last weekend.

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