Sophie’s Story for a worthy cause

Ishara JAYAWARDANE

Meet Kumudu Fonseka a genial Sri Lankan man. One of the most far sighted visionaries of education in the Middle East, Chairman and Founder of Stafford Sri Lankan School Doha. An educationist dedicated to uniting Sri Lankans.

Fonseka is very much the Godfather of the Children of Stafford. A troupe of 60 students from Stafford Sri Lanka School Doha, the only Sri Lankan

school in the State of Qatar, visited the motherland to stage the musical Sophie’s Story . The performance was followed by a Cancer awareness walk to Vihara Maha Devi Park.

“We have been running this school for the last twelve years. If I say that the school is a very sustainable organization, I need to have this type of mission here because these children will have to return to Sri Lanka one day. That is the main idea of having a Sri Lankan school. And when they come back here there should be acceptance in this country for them. Working 30 years abroad I lost my identity.

These children need to have a future here. A future of reputation and acceptance. So we thought of coming here to bring a reputation for the organization and invariably the children will have an acceptance in this society. When you say Sri Lankan school in Doha, nobody will know you, so this awareness is a must. I’m looking at two avenues today : the University and Higher Education have to recognize our children and how to give them a Sri Lankan style education, so they can come back to Sri Lanka and establish themselves,” said Fonseka.

Fonseka stressed that the most important thing today is how we can bring families together.

“We finished the war, the true war will be over the day all families return to Sri Lanka and live like one family here. There are two million living abroad. We have not just started a school but reunited 400 families. They are a very talented group of students who did a grand show in a world class hall in Qatar.

The school has two highly qualified principals. We have high caliber educationists involved in the school.

We need our students to go for higher education and ultimately get proper jobs in the decision making process. We need them either to be integrated into the education system here or export the education system here to Qatar for our students.”

The school is now discussing with the Open University of Sri Lanka, whether they are willing to open as a center at Staffords, so that the students can do a distance learning from Qatar.

“At the same time we are looking at Chartered Accountantsof Sri Lanka to open up a branch. It will be done very soon. Recently we had a discussion with achievers so we can have the higher education run through achievers in Qatar.”

Nisansala Jayaweera, Teacher in Charge of the Drama Club said the intention offorming the Drama club in 2010, was to bring out the innate talents and abilitiesof the students.

"We wanted to perform Sophie’s Story in Sri Lanka so the children may obtain recognition about themselves and give some recognition to the school.Our tour is based on creating cancer awareness as well. We wanted to make sure that all our students are involved and become an integrated part of the communityservice project in this country and that we have not forgotten our motherland,” she said.