Adventure ahead for 1,000 scouts, guides

FUN: Teen scouts will gather once again to paint the town red. This time it is not in Colombo but in Kandy. This year's J. J. P. Dehigama Memorial International Adventure and Orienteering Programme will be held in Kandy on September 29 and 30.

The competition is organised for the 23rd consecutive year. Teens will have a different experience this time, as there will be international participants. The event is conducted annually by the 2nd Kandy Kingswood Scout Group in memory of one of their best scouts, J. J. P. Dehigama who died 24 years ago in an accident.

This year there will be around 1,000 scouts and guides from all over the country together with 30 scouts and guides from Pakistan, the Maldives and Bangladesh joining them.

The main activities will be held in the Hanthana Mountain Range and the Mahaweli River in Kandy. Seven teen scouts from Kingswood College Kandy are the main organisers of the event. Nadun Eranda Medamarandawala, 16, the troop leader of Kingswood Scout Group said it would be a great event.

"There will be a two-day exploration competition organised at an international level. Scouts will have a hike with activities and check points in the Hantana Mountain Range.

About 600 scouts and guides will take part in this event. Scouts will stay the night at the College premises. We will also have a campfire. The prize giving will be held at the conclusion of the two-day programme," Nadun said.

Nadun is assisted by his friends Kanishka Gamagedara, Indika Ekanayake, Sameera Thalakotuwa, Jisthi Hasheem, Salinda Karunaratne and Sachinthaka Kahawandala.

"They supported me a lot in organising this event. All of us are looking forward to have a great time with our friends," he added.

The teens are guided by their Principal Ranjith Chandrasekera, Group Scout Leader H. M. Kapila Priyantha and Scout leader Srimal Samaranayake.

They are also grateful to C. Batuwangala, Chief Scout Commissioner and Shantha Madurawe, National Training Commissioner for all assistance to make this event an international one and a success.

The occasion will be more colourful as Abdullah Rasheed, Regional Director of the World Scout Bureau, Asia Pacific Region will be the chief guest.

NYO marks 15th anniversary with dazzling performance

Francis Warnakulasooriya, Pothuhera special corr.

MUSIC: The National Youth Orchestra (NYO) was established by the Education Ministry in 1992 on a suggestion by Maya Abeywickrama, the present consultant of the Western Music Section of the Education Ministry.

The orchestra celebrated its 15th anniversary on September 20 with a special performance of the Orchestra at the BMICH. The NYO is a training ground for students to learn to play orchestra instruments.

Students from outstation schools meet at Visakha Vidyalaya on Saturday afternoons to be trained by music specialists from the symphony Orchestra, the Forces and others personalities from the music field.

Over 1,000 students from Anuradhapura, Ambalangoda, Bandarawela, Badulla, Divulapitiya, Galle, Ibbagamuwa, Kandy, Kalutara, Kurunegala, Kegalla, Karandeniya, Matara, Rathnapura, Wennappuwa, Colombo and suburbs have benefited from the Orchestra.

The NYO has also performed at the President's House on two occasions and also had given many lecture demonstrations on the instruments of the Orchestra in Galle, Kandy, Kurunegala and Colombo.

The 15th anniversary concert offered a variety of music.

The conductors at the special performance were Prof Ajit Abesekera, Manilal Weerakon, Dayananda Fernando and two past members of the Orchestra Dilan Angunawala and Neomal Weerakoon.

Cultural chameleons and global nomads

DORTMUND: The graduation gown of the school was a uniform blue, but when the students lined up for the final photos they could not look more different. The picture my father took of me and my friends included an American born in Egypt, a Chinese girl, and a Dutch girl - and there was my friend Annelie, who is half-Swedish and half-Sri Lankan.

My school was the Overseas School in Colombo, Sri Lanka, an International School attended by what educators call "Third Culture Kids" - young people who grow up in two or more different cultures and try to live with their own, "third," mix of this experience.

Around 17,000 German students attended German Schools overseas in 2006, part of a growing group of such children, Melanie Schulz from the German Foreign Office told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

The daughter of a German father working in international development, I first went to Sri Lanka when I was barely 17. Two years later and back in Germany, my world appears very different to me and to that of other teenagers in my home town Dortmund in north- west Germany.

"It is strange to see people in suburban terraces, who finish school, do local apprenticeships, marry their kindergarten sweetheart, have two children, and just seem to stay in a little world for the rest of their lives," says Jenni Griewel, 21. Also from Germany, she finished one year abroad in Ireland in 2006.

Ruth Van Reken, from Indianapolis, a former nurse, who now works with children of diplomats, members of the army and missionary workers, confirms the overwhelming experience of children who grew up in different worlds.

"Life is learned in living out a full three-dimensional view rather than through history and geography books alone," she tells DPA.

"I still remember the day when my father received a phone call in our Colombo flat and later told my younger sister and me that the LTTE had moved their attacks from the north of the country and bombed the airport in Colombo just 30 kilometres away from our flat.

"Even though we were normally not exposed to Sri Lanka's conflict, I was frightened. When I mailed my German friends in Dortmund about this, nobody knew about it. Nobody even knew what the LTTE - was.

"It is not just that your school pals can come from more than three continents. As a Third Culture Kid, you feel in the middle of things that appear very far away for other children".

For Reken, who spent her childhood in Nigeria and later co-authored the book Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, everything she does today is connected to her multi-cultural childhood.