Mother Sri Lanka marks milestone with leadership camp and products gallery
Mother Sri Lanka celebrated their 10th anniversary with a Youth Leadership and Harmony Ambassador Camp and opened their first ever Sri Lankan products gallery at Battaramulla on November 28.
The series of events started with the final award ceremony of Project RUN 2017/18 held at the NSBM Green University auditorium which was the culmination of Mother Sri Lanka’s community development projects. The events were attended by over 700 students and teachers representing all nine provinces of the country, who were the winners of Mother Sri Lanka’s largest school programme Project RUN.
A three-day camp to train 250 youth leaders on Youth Leadership and Harmony Ambassadorship followed at the South Asian Teacher Development Centre at Meepe.
Expanding their scope of work from children to adults, Mother Sri Lanka has also implemented a livelihood development project over the last two years, where they help over 30 self-employed craftsmen in designing, packaging and marketing their products. Most of these items are hand made with love and care - using local raw materials. The range of items includes handloom products, clothing, wood, ceramic, paper and clay items, hand-made jewellery and 100% natural food products for a healthy lifestyle. While the full range of products is available at their gallery in Battaramulla, a limited range is available at selected outlets of Arpico, Laksala, Odel and Cotton Collection. All proceeds of these sales go towards the charity work conducted by Mother Sri Lanka with school children and entrepreneurs.
“When I embarked on this journey of ‘Mother Sri Lanka’ on November 19, 2008, I never imagined that we will be at this stage ten years later. What made me start the movement was the sheer negativity that was prevalent in the country at that time. All of our work is done by volunteers, including myself, and the funding is from generous donors from the private sector along with the endorsement of the Ministry of Education,” said Founder/ Chairperson of the Mother Sri Lanka movement, Dr. Janaki Kuruppu.
“We have faced a lot of hurdles and we almost gave up in 2015, however, we managed to overcome the hurdles and here we are going from strength to strength. The saying that ‘if you do something honest and right, you cannot go wrong’ has been really true for Mother Sri Lanka, it is the passion and commitment of my team that has made this possible.”
The Youth Leadership and Harmony Ambassador Camp was partnered by the Ministry of Education and the State Ministry for Unity & Co-existence, the Office for National Unity & Co-existence, Brandix Lanka and YouLead (a Youth leadership movement funded by AMCHAM). For further details please
contact 011-2878711 or email:mothersrilankatrust2015@ gmail.com or visit their website
at www.mothersrilanka.lk