National Youth Awards on June 18

Nipuni Wimalapala

The 34th Sri Lanka Youth National Awards Festival 2013 will be held on June 18 at 5.30 pm at Sri Lanka Youth Theatre under the patronage of Youth Affairs and Skills Development Minister Dullas Alahapperuma.

It will award 113 awards this year on a trilingual basis. There will be 50 awards in the Sinhala medium, nine awards in the Tamil medium and one award in the English medium. For the first time in its history, Differently abled youth will also be awarded this year. It was initiated due to an idea of Minister Alahapperuma. Seven awards will be awarded in the Sinhala medium while another one award will be awarded in the Tamil medium for the differently abled youth.

In the drama category, 15 awards will be awarded for Sinhala short dramas and 14 awards will be awarded for long dramas. There will be 16 awards for the Tamil short dramas.

Under Sinhala, Tamil and English media, upcountry, low country, Sabaragamu, folk, new creations, Kathak dancing will be awarded under the categories of solo, group, male and female. Also in classical music category, violin, sitar, tabla, flute, esraj and harmonium players will be awarded. In the Western music category, drums, guitar, keyboard players will be awarded.

The main objective of the awards festival is to encourage and enhance the inborn talents of Sri Lankan youth and to make them gather around the youth clubs to create a larger and stronger youth network in the country.