Mother Sri Lanka Trust launches RUN for Lanka

The first provincial workshop of Mother Sri Lanka Trust’s latest initiative Project RUN was successfully conducted at the main Conference Hall at Temple Trees on October 25, 2012 with the participation of over 2000 students and 150 teachers and Principals representing 150 schools from the Western Province. This event followed the launch of Project RUN which was held on October 12, 2012 in the presence of the Secretary to the President and the Trustee of Mother Sri Lanka Trust, Lalith Weeratunga at Temple Trees to 600 plus Education Directors attached to the ministry at provincial, zonal, and divisional levels.

The Founder/Chairperson of Mother Sri Lanka Trust Janaki Kuruppu together with Executive Committee members W.A. Wijethunge, Ganesh Dharmawardhana, Lalith De Silva, Mangala Yapa, Thushantha Karunanayake, Lakith Peiris and Shiromi Masakorala and Director of Education (National Languages and Humanities) R.M. M. Rathnayake presided at the program. The Project RUN provincial workshops for schools in the Uva Province were also successfully concluded on November 14 and 15 in Badulla and Moneragala. The Badulla workshop was held at the Badulla Library Conference Hall with the participation of 350 students from 50 schools and the Moneragala workshop, at Moneragala Mahanama Maha Vidyalaya with the participation of about 200 participants from 30 schools in the area.

The Founder/Chairperson of Mother Sri Lanka Trust Janaki Kuruppu presided at both workshops. The concluding remarks and Vote of Thanks was delivered by Assistant Director of Education (Humanities and Social Science) Uva Province, G.W. Cyril.

An interesting outcome of all these workshops was how many children wanted to take up the podium and speak on how excited they are about this opportunity they have been given to be a part of nation building from their school days.

Named after the acronyms of the three components, Responsible citizenship, Unity, and National pride, Project RUN is a unique concept where children are encouraged to come up with their own project, find the team and appoint leaders as well as find the finances for the project under the guidance of Mother Sri Lanka Trust.

The objectives of Project RUN are, to develop a responsible citizen to develop a child who understands and respects other ethnic and religious groups to develop a child who is proud to be a Sri Lankan, to develop attitudes such as co-operation, compassion, respect, interdependency among students as well as teachers, to develop entrepreneurship, leadership and project management skills of students to finally develop students who are self confident, independent, creative and strategic thinkers who can contribute to nation building.

The plan is to implement the program initially in 1000 selected schools across the country in partnership with the Education Ministry to implement the project in all nine provinces. Selection of schools will be based on two criteria, namely the schools selected for the 1000 National Schools Program by the Education Ministry and in the 950 schools where Mother Sri Lanka clubs are already in operation. In addition to building the infrastructure, the program will add value to the 1000 National School Program by enhancing the quality of children who are produced from these National Schools to be independent, self motivated and confident. Every year the best projects will be evaluated and rewarded.

The most outstanding leaders that elevate from the best projects will be entitled to advanced career guidance and development opportunities and the clubs will have a chance to receive further support from the Mother Sri Lanka Trust to continue their good work. From the inception four years ago, the Mother Sri Lanka Trust has initiated several sustainable activities that have served to cultivate patriotism amongst all the young people of the island.

The latest effort in this regard seeks to further develop the community spirit, leadership, entrepreneurship and creative skills of the island’s future generation, with the underlying objective of building responsible patriotic citizens in the long run. The Office of the President of Sri Lanka in collaboration with the Corporate Sector and Public Sector has voluntarily joined hands and initiated the movement Mother Sri Lanka Trust in 2008.

Mother Sri Lanka movement’s aim is to bring together diverse perspectives under one umbrella to develop positive thinking about Sri Lanka. Mother Sri Lanka is a non-political, non-profit charitable movement with its own independent trust and management consisting of a group of professionals from both the public and private sector, who have volunteered for same.

The funding for the process is obtained from private sector companies. Among the many events conducted in the schools sector, the initial Mother Sri Lanka School Clubs program “Our contribution to develop our country’ covered three million school children from 2,600 national, private and international schools drawn from all 25 districts.

The “Buds of Patriotism” pre-school program which covered nearly 17,000 pre-schools and approximately 600,000 toddlers to develop National Pride and Patriotism among pre-school children, Denuwara Mithuro or Friends of Two Cities, a five-day camp organized with the intention to foster reconciliation and peaceful coexistence among the diverse ethnic and religious groups of the island and the Interfaith Music festival that was organized to heal the wounds of war and brought together people of all faiths under one umbrella as Sri Lankans in 2012, a first of its kind held in Asia, saw the confluence of more than 5,000 school children from schools across the island, were some of the key highlights. The unique nature of the Mother Sri Lanka project is that they are not one-off ‘feel-good’ projects but planned as sustainable activities which encourage an attitude change in the beneficiaries of the project which is proven by the short but eventful tract record of four years. Please refer to Mother Sri Lanka website www.mothersrilanka.lk for further details of past and ongoing work.