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by Edward Arambewala

At the inaugural meeting of the above association held recently in Colombo to promote the cause of centenarians, who have achieved the rare distinction of scoring century in living - living centurians, in the human society, it was decided among other things to propose to the UN to consider the possibility of recognising the living achievement of these individuals in the world community by way of awarding them honorary UN citizenships with certain privileges to be workout by a special UN Committee appointed for the purpose.

Professor of Physiology Colvin Goonaratne of the Colombo Medical Faculty was unanimously elected as the chairperson of the Centenarian Friendly Association.

The considered view of the professional group who banded themselves as 'Centenarians' for short in forming this association was.

Centurians in life

Living up to one hundred years, a century in living is a unique achievement in anybody's life, which the living in society has to give due recognition, and honour to the individual concerned.

But does it happen in society today?

No country in the world has the accurate statistics of the centenarians, both living and the dead of that country.

No serious attempt at study

We don't think anybody in the world has made any serious attempt to make a study of the centenarians in that country, or written any books on the subject, as far as I know. I stand to be corrected here. If any reader of this article here or abroad, has any information to the contrary, please get in touch with me or Prof. Colvin Goonaratna the Chairperson of Centenarians Sri Lanka who is the Professor of Physiology of the Colombo Medical Faculty.

Difficult to comprehend

It is difficult to comprehend, why the living society which today has developed from the stone age to the modern space age, has not much cared to give recognition and honour to this unique living achievement of its own members in general for centuries past, and today, we only speak of centenarians only if it happens to be a person of eminence.

All important thing

Why should it be so? After all society is composed of the living human beings. Without the living there would not be a society, at all.

The all important thing therefore is "life", so why shouldn't any man or woman even if he or she be a beggar be given that special recognition and honour if he/she reaches a hundred years in living; and thus becomes a living centurian.

Ignoring living centenarians

What kind of a human society are we living in to ignore the living centurians, who have scored one hundred years at the living wicket in open society, from infancy, childhood, adulthood and now in the old age.

But we are ready to shower praise and shout hurrah, and give cups, donations and presents and honours when a person just scores one hundred runs in a cricket match running between two wickets after thrashing a ball, in a mater of few hours.

The poor man who scores a living century remains in the dark (unlike a batsman who scores a century), dies unrecognised and unsung.

We the Centenarians Sri Lanka think this is really a inhuman situation, which has to be changed, and corrected sooner the better.

That is why a few of us in the medical, media, commercial, educational and industrial professions, who are committed to this cause got together banded ourselves as "Centenarians" to do whatever we could even in a small way to bring about this change.

Centenarian study

As the first step in this direction we commenced a Centenarian study in the Health Watch in association with the SPC, in April last year.

This study has two aspects - medical and social, and it is a very basic preliminary study.

The medical aspect (done by a Health Watch SPC medical team) is to find out the secrets of long life as ascertained, by the medial team from the centenarians in the study.

The social aspect is to create an interest in society on the centenarians and thus generate some recognition respect and honour for human life in the society by the example set by the medical team personally visiting the centenarians in their homes, and spending the day with them, all voluntarily sacrificing their time for the project.

When Health Watch with pictures carries these events, with the life stories of the Centenarians concerned and the medical teams fitness reports about them added and how they are being cared for and looked after by their children all explained we expected to create a general interest in the reading public about the Centenarians in society.

Generate interest in centenarians

As we anticipated it worked. Now we find that within this short period of about nine months since the project began we are getting more and more letters of appreciation for the project, by the public. Isn't this a clear indication of the growing interest in the project by the public.

We now get information about living Centenarians in society even from people who are not directly connected with those families. Isn't this another clear indication that the interest in centenarians is slowly growing in society.

We are certain

We are certain now that we can achieve in society our social objective of creating "respect, recognition and honour to human life" which we are aiming at through this project.

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