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Sri Lankan mission felicitates compatriot

Under the auspices of the Sri Lanka Mission in The Netherlands and with the support of the Sri Lankan community domiciled in The Netherlands, Mr. Kulatunga Waidyasekera was honoured for his services of cultural Ambassadorship to The Netherlands in the past twenty three years. Mr. Waidyasekera has been resident in The Netherlands since 1978. The Embassy for Sri Lanka was established only in October 1992. But, its absence was not allowed to be felt culturally by Mr. Waidyasekera whose dedication to his Motherland manifested in many Sri Lankan cultural activities organized single handed by him on every National Day or at any other opportunity. He was found in some part of The Netherlands to project the cultural image of Sri Lanka continuously for nearly quarter century.

His enthusiasm and dedication was such that he collected artistes and even trained Dutch artistes to play Sri Lankan music and perform Sri Lanka dances at the early stages when Sri Lankans were rare community in numbers in The Netherlands. He once made even his Dutch wife wear cloth and jacket with a "Konde" and do the Sri Lanka folk dance.

His contribution to the Sri Lanka-Netherlands relationship cannot be under estimated. He projected the Sri Lankan identity and image amongst the Dutch people with continuity and dignity.

Coming from Harispattuwa in the backwoods of Kandy, he graduated at the University of Colombo in Physics and Mathematics. He joined the Steel Corporation and later the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and served as Personnel Manager and cultivated many friends, amongst was the late Mr. Charlie Abeysekera, Social Reformer and an eminent Civil Servant. Waidyasekera is also an eminent violinist coming of a traditional musical family in Sri Lanka. His eminence in The Netherlands is being appreciated by the educated and the learned Dutch. He is an effective participant and member of several Sri Lanka-Dutch social, cultural and charitable organizations. Hence, as a mark of recognition, the Sri Lanka Embassy and the Dutch Sri Lankan communities gave him a fitting felicitation by reading out a scroll and presented to him a Silver Casket beautifully crafted according to the Kandyan tradition. This is an unprecedented event in the history of the Sri Lankan Mission in The Netherlands. 

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