Zoom-In: UMT’s ‘journey of love’
View(s):One lit candle, spilling its flame onto another spreads through the room as tiny orbs of light soon bathe 500 to 600 students in a serene glow. Marking the end of Unity Mission Trust’s (UMT) biggest annual event, it is also one of the most significant moments of the Unity Mission Camp for Founding Trustee, Bertal Pinto-Jayawardena.
Lessons in harmony: From past UMT camps
“We take a vow of sorts,” he says, talking of the symbolic ending of the five action-packed days that student leaders around the country share. The significance of passing on the light is to give Unity Mission campers a glimpse of the effect reaching out to another can have. In fact, this was how the Trust started “Our journey of love.”
A few boxes of books for the children of newly institutionalised Menik Farm signalled the start of UMT’s work. Known for their reconciliation work at grass root level, the Founder Trustee feels that they have kept evolving through their six years in operation. The evolution has been both horizontal, covering regions of the country with their message of equality and vertical, in terms of developing skills to provide “better leadership for a better tomorrow.”
There have been glitches along the road of constant reinvention to each rising need he admits. Starting out in a group with no familiar faces and leaving with friends from different districts and cultures it took around four Unity Mission Camps, each a logistical feat of gathering over 500 students from all parts of the country, to master the art of separating schoolmates who arrive together. However camp is just one way UMT promotes respect for diversity and friendship. Creating potential employees from all parts of Sri Lanka by providing English education and computer literacy for a higher standard of living, they have run into a roadblock as regards funding which has slowed down their efforts.
Yet despite the constraints, the work continues. Reacting to reports of concerned teachers and UMT’s own youth Regional Councils they now hope to address the surging numbers of drug usage. Spiking significantly higher in the North, this comes as a serious clamp on the potential UMT is determined to cultivate.
Six years ago, the UMT arrived in Mullaitivu with shoes for school children who “asked us what they were.” Returning to the Northern part of the country, this time with strong Youth Regional Councils of former campers who are driven to fight the drug menace, the Trust is to launch its newest series of workshops on sexual rights and abuse, the dangers of alcoholism and awareness on drug abuse.
Two areas, Chillavanthai and Puthukuduiruppu are the targets of the Trust’s Zoom-In series which customises reconciliation and self-development to each region. The workshops for schoolchildren on August 1 and 2 will be conducted by a team of youth partnering with the Family Planning Association who will come aboard for the project.
“We are also including respected members of the community, to share their expertise,” they say. Reaching out to those most vulnerable, UMT’s awareness workshops aim to equip youngsters with the belief that they are “equal sons and daughters” of a clean, drug and violence-free Sri Lanka.