Future World Leaders delegate from Lanka carry Olympic Torch in
London
Sri Lankan Medical Student in Britain, Haresh Selvaskandan 22, was
selected as one of the Touch bearers for the final lap of the 2012
Olympic Torch. Born in Hong Kong and moving to Sri Lanka, at the age of
four, Haresh schooled at British School Colombo and the Colombo
International School. It is at CIS that he says he became the person he
is today, thanks to a combination of a “great group of friends and an
amazing set of inspiring teachers”.
|
Exhilarating experience: Haresh carrying the Olympic Torch
cheered by the crowd |
In 2006 Haresh Selvaskandan, attended the Future World Leaders Summit
at Georgetown University in Washington D.C as a member of the Sri Lankan
delegation. His fellow delegates at this summit from CIS were, Thushya
Shah, Sohanya Wickremaratne, Nikhil Amalean, Abdul Kareem and Nuzhath
Kareem, Shanil Nethicumara, Meliza Cyril, Menuwan Weerasinghe, Thamalee
Palansuriya, Abishek Devraj, Darron Henricus, Charya De Silva, Imran
Jeevunjee, Thiyagi Ruwanpathirana, Thehinde Fonseka and Hassan Manikku.
For a full list of his fellow Sri Lankan delegates, visit
www.futureworldleader.org
The Olympic Torch is perhaps the most famous herald of the Olympic
Games. It is ignited at the site of the Ancient Olympics in Olympia,
Greece several months before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
This year the Olympic Flame, arrived in Britain, on May 18, and 8,000
inspirational individuals were selected to carry it through over 1000
cities, towns and villages in the lead-up to the London Olympics
beginning on July 27.
To be a torchbearer of the Olympic Flame is considered to be one of
the greatest honours for a Leader within and outside the sporting world.
Since the year 2000 over 750 Sri Lankan teenagers have experienced
this amazing week of Leadership Development in the USA, which has
changed their lives forever, like in the case of young Haresh. Since
participating in these annual leadership summits 600 of them have
entered foreign Universities for higher education.
Many returned after graduations to take up leadership roles in their
parents companies or pursue their vocations in Sri Lanka.
“These summits are designed for promising teenagers to explore and
challenge their Leadership ability, build self confidence and
interactive skills at a very early age to achieve Leadership Excellence
in Society” said, Ananda Rajapakse the Sri Lanka Country Director, for
Presidential Classroom the local representative for Leadership in Action
Summits at Harvard, Yale, Chicago and Georgetown Universities in USA.
For Haresh Selvaskandan, the best thing about carrying the Olympic
Torch was having his parents and friends there to support him.
Perhaps this is a reflection of the life and attitudes of a young man
who went into medicine, with the aim of helping others and was chosen to
be part of the select group carrying the Olympic Torch, thanks to his
humanitarian work in the field of medicine.
Joining Leicester Medical School in 2007, immediately after the
Future World Leaders Summit, he discovered Medsin; a national
organization of students affiliated to the UN dedicated to tackling
inequalities in global health distribution. For three years of medical
school, he worked with Medsin, setting up projects that aimed to help
asylum seekers, the homeless, the financially less privileged and even
the orphans in Kenya.
He established the Kenyan Orphan Project, in Leicester, which
fundraised in UK and took medical students over to Kenya during the
summer for grassroots level involvement, with work in local hospitals
and community health centres. In 2010 he was voted in as Vice-Chancellor
of Medsin-UK. In the same year, he graduated with a First Class degree,
from a Bachelor of Sciences in Neurosciences, which he took a year out
from medical school to complete.
At present, Haresh works as a regional coordinator for Medsin and
keeps his scientific interests alive through work on various projects
with clinicians.
For now his aim is to be a good student and focus on his finals-he
needs to get through if he wants his shot at making the world that
proverbial better place.
One day he’ll be back where he started off though.
“My ultimate goal is to go into academic nephrology and play a key
role in International Development, starting in Sri Lanka,” Haresh says.
More details of 2013 Leadership Summits in USA could be obtained from
[email protected]
|
