Category Archives: charitable outreach

September 14, 2021 · 9:24 pm

Izzy Bee: Busy Aiding Koalas on Magnetic Island, Queensland

Robert Moran, in Sydney Morning Herald, 16  September 2020, where the title runs thus: “Meet the 13-year-old ‘Koala Whisperer’, Australia’s new conservation superstar”

Ali Bee, a veterinarian on Queensland’s Magnetic Island, and her partner Tim didn’t think they’d ever have children. “That’s basically why we bought the animal clinic, we didn’t think Izzy was going to eventuate,” Bee recalls. “Five months later, I was pregnant with Izzy. “It was a very happy surprise. She has been at the vet clinic her whole life. I had to go back to work just five weeks after she was born, so she has literally been brought up at the clinic.”

Izzy Bee, 13, is the star of Netflix's Izzy's Koala World.
Izzy Bee, 13, is the star of Netflix’s Izzy’s Koala World.CREDIT:NETFLIX

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September 10, 2021 · 6:19 pm

9/11 Chaos: How Lewis Porte and Gander in Canada met the Overflow from 9/11

It is almost 20 years since 9/11 and here is a wonderful story about that terrible day. …..Jerry Brown Delta Flight 15… (true story)

Here is an amazing story from a flight attendant on Delta Flight 15, written following 9-11:

On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, we were about 5 hours out of Frankfurt, flying over the North Atlantic.  All of a sudden, the curtains parted and I was told to go to the cockpit, immediately, to see the captain.

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September 3, 2021 · 2:11 pm

Anne Abayasekara: Telling It Like It Is

Telling It Like It Is …. is a compilation of a few of the journalistic writings of Anne Abayasekara.

   

She was born Annette Aurelia Ameresekere in April 1925. In the field of journalism, she was a Sri Lankan pioneer, entering what was a male dominated profession in the early 1940s. At Lake House, before reaching 22 years of age, she was appointed Editress of the Women’s Pages in the Ceylon Daily News and Sunday Observer, being the only female in the Editorial Department.

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August 15, 2021 · 1:48 pm

Dr. Cyril Paranavitana: An Appreciation from Many Hearts & Hands

Piyasiri Wickramasekara, Chandrasena Maliyadde and HMG Palihakkara ++

It is with profound sorrow that we, the class of 1968 in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Peradeniya, came to know of the untimely departure of our great friend Dr. Cyril Paranavithana (Parane), just two days prior to his 75th birthday (28 July 2021) in New York, USA. The warm
greetings intended for this landmark birthday event had to be hurriedly turned into heartfelt condolences.

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August 7, 2021 · 1:41 am

Autobiography of a Sri Lankan Priest: Fr. Reid Shelton Fernando

Fr. Reid Shelton Fernando

I was born in November 1943 and baptized by Fr. F.M. Goonetilleke who was responsible for the Holy Hour Prayer book. It was in Nuwara Eliya Church as my father was then working in the Stafford Estate Ragala.  My hometown is Moratuwa and I was a parishioner of the Parish of Willorawatte.

I was ordained as a Catholic Priest of the Archdiocese of Colombo in January 1970. I had my priestly studies in the National Seminary Ampitiya in Kandy from 1962 till 1969. While I had my secular studies at St. Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa till 1957 and joined St. Aloysius Minor Seminary in Borella in 1958.

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July 28, 2021 · 1:43 pm

Columbathurai School for Disadvantaged Tamil Children

A THANK YOU NOTE addressed to MOHAN SAMARASINHE, 27 July 2021

Dear Respected Sir

I would like to extend my sincere thanks for coming forward to establish a Pre-school in our place and begin for the poor and needy. I highly appreciate your great service towards our people especially it is how important to see that a Sinhala  person has come forward to help Tamil  who have suffered so much since 1983. Even though we tried to get help from many people they didnt give us proper reply. Then only I requested Mr.Mohan Samarasingha. You accepted our request without any hesitation to support us to begin the school succesfully. You have already given nearly four hundred thousand rupees to renovate the building. Now the building has come up  yet we have to do little work to finish. So we hope to receive  your support in future too. Once again I extend my sincere thanks to your love and grate service towards us.

Thank you
Amitha
Colombuthurai
Jaffna.

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July 26, 2021 · 1:09 am

Vale: Dr Nalini Kumari Kappagoda, 21 January 1936-23 July 2021

Hugh Karunanayake

It is with much sadness that I record the demise of Dr Nalini Kappagoda, lately of Bundanoon and Killara. Dr Nalini Kappagoda, a long-time resident, of West Pymble, Killara, and Bundanoon, in New South Wales, passed away at the age of 85 on 23 July. She was one of the most brilliant products of the Ceylon Medical College, from where she passed out as a doctor with First Class Honours in 1960. She was most likely the only student in the history of the Medical College to collect a bag of 4 gold medals during a studentship. In 1958 she was awarded the Hazarai Gold Medal for the best student at the Third MBBS examination. In 1958 she was also awarded the Loos Gold medal for pathology. In the same year she was also awarded the Mathew Gold Medal for Forensic Medicine. In her final year in 1960 she was awarded the Dadabhoy Gold Medal for Medicine. She subsequently obtained her PhD in Pathology from the University of London and was a Fellow of the Royal Australian Society of Pathologists.

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July 24, 2021 · 8:04 pm

Dr Susiri Weerasekera: A Sturdy Servant of Humankind

Michael Roberts

In dealing today with the outrageous prejudices displayed by the American political analyst Robert Kaplan in mid-2009, I realised that I should reaffirm the essays devoted to the services to mankind provided by a doctor indomitable and discerning.[1] That medico was Dr. Susiri Weerasekera, who, alas, had deteriorated to a state non compos mentis when I made inquiries at his home in Nugegoda a few years back.

Susiri [with tie] is standing on the extreme left from the viewer’s eyes — this Pix being the Board of Management of the Friend-in-Need Society

Susiri Weerasekera was a person you would want to have alongside you in adversity: a person pragmatic, observant, down-to-earth and relatively unprejudiced. I got to know him when I dropped in on the Friend-in-Need Society in Colombo in 2010 to look into their work in support of the disabled and their speciality in assisting personnel who had lost a limb to obtain and then utilize a prosthetic leg.[2] When I embarked on journeys to the northern reaches Susiri provided me with names and introductions to key personnel in Vavuniya and Jaffna as well as an introduction to Dr Hemantha Herath who was in charge of medical relief for the IDP camps. These recommendations were invaluable.

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July 17, 2021 · 1:24 am

For Lanka: Lessons from the Past and Lee Kwan Yew

Somasundaram Skandakumar’s Address to the Rotary Club in Colombo, July 2021 … as presented in The Sunday Island, 11 July 2021... with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi …. with this title “Where we went wrong and the possible course correction”

Mr President, let me congratulate you and all members on the inauguration of Rotary Club of Colombo Port City and wish you every success in your noble endeavours ! I was born barely two weeks before Independance and like some of you listening in, lived through it all in my land of birth. What has transpired over those 73 years is common knowledge so let me share why I love my country as I do.

At a very young age in a geography class I looked at the world map to see where our country was positioned. I marvelled at the sheer beauty of its outline and location, unmatched by any other country or continent on that map. I reflected on its priceless resources as tea,rubber,coconut, and cinnamon, graphite and gems, and our climate, scenery, and arable fertile land with ready access to water, spread over a mere 65,000 kms and said to myself that it had to be a gift from above.

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July 13, 2021 · 11:40 am

Outback Magic: Indigenous Music Traversing Boundaries

Music Outback Foundation had its beginnings in late 2001 when Founding Director Steve Berry took an opportunity to conduct a week long music workshop at M’bunghara, a small Indigenous community in remote Central Australia.

Steve’s time there left him inspired to return to the Northern Territory and pursue the possibility of providing regular music education opportunities to remote Indigenous schools.   In September 2002 he visited four more schools conducting workshops at each location, and the success of these visits resulted in an invitation to expand the developing program to 12 remote schools in Central Australia.

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