Helpage takes up the pen

Ishara JAYAWARDANE

For the past 15-20 years Helpage have had an all island essay competition in all three languages, but this year on the initiation Member of the Council of HASL, Jezima Ismail they decided to change direction and arrange a short story writing competition in English.

"The Purpose being to propagate the English language which is very important in Sri Lanka as well as inculcating in children the ideas of how to respect our elders," said Helpage Chairman Sri Lanka, Tilak De Zoysa.

Elders should not be pitied. They are valuable contributors to society. Much can be obtained from them. They can contribute to society and the country.

"So what we want is to create ideas in the minds of the students to write a short story on the old people and how we should respect them.

That is the main idea and concurrently to improve their English Language.

"I am very happy to be here this morning because my world is always children. On the other hand, my books contain a lot of stories about old people. There was a whole gallery of old people who really enjoyed my work and my depiction of old characters" said renowned writer of children's stories Sybil Wettasinghe.

Wettasinghe also thanked Helpage for organizing this competition for our children.

She said that creating an awareness in children about taking care of old people is important .

"Now this short story writing, as I see it, is a fine art. It consists of beauty. This comes when children read good books and take into then the beautiful words of language.

It is like painting a picture. A whole lot of colours come into it when it is mixed. When we write short stories using the English language we have to give it a distinct Sri Lankan identity," said Wettasinghe.

In 1986 she was asked to illustrate a children's bible by an international organization in America.

"I wanted to make this bible totally Sri Lankan. And they gave me permission to do whatever I liked, to do as I like.

So I illustrated Christ in black hair and the angels without wings and it was a new idea" said Wettasinghe.

This is typically a Sri Lankan bible.

She pointed out that in producing our art works, we have to draw in our own identity, so that anyone, anywhere in the world will recognize us as a product of Sri Lanka.

"Teachers in school must be trained and guided in Sri Lanka so they in turn may train and guide their students about how to apply themselves to writing books for children and making them typically our own," concluded Wettasinghe.