Unity Mission Trust: Joining 8000 youth in friendship
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A youth leader from the North addresses the audience
It was the youth – from north, south, east and west who took the spotlight as the Unity Mission Trust celebrated their seven-year journey working for unity and reconciliation.
Unity Mission Trust began their work in the immediate aftermath of the war in May 2009 with the aim of bringing together the young people from different parts of the country. Starting with ‘Unity Camps’ which were held in different parts of Sri Lanka that were hugely successful in breaking barriers and forging lasting friendships, the Trust now also works with student leaders carrying out leadership and mentoring programmes. To-date some 8,000 youth have benefited from their work.
The well attended event at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute on November 16 saw the youth leaders speaking of how the Trust’s work has impacted their lives. The activities of the Trust are now carried out at regional level as well as centrally driven programmes at national level. UMT now has 14 active Regional Councils, a National Youth Leadership Council and a National Centre that drives and co-ordinates unity and integration activities at regional level.
Present at the event were trustees Maj. Gen (Rtd) Lohan Goonewardene – Chairman, Dian Gomes, Rukshan Perera, Ramola Sivasundaram, Nirmali Wickramasinghe, Anushya Coomaraswamy, Reyaz Mihular, Chandra Schaffter and founder – trustees Bertal and Shyamala Pinto – Jayawardena, some of whose video messages were played at the event.
“These youth have now entered into various vocations and pursuits to better themselves. A number of them, who faced traumatic times in the past, particularly in the North, are today completing their University education; others have now spread out into fields as diverse as tourism; marketing; commerce; accounting and auditing; the Police Department and even into the Armed Forces,” said Major General (Rtd) Lohan Goonewardene, Chairman of the Trust.
“16 & 17-year-olds who first joined us, unsure of what was happening, have now transformed into a vibrant group of 20 to 24-year-old Young Adults, who are self-assured, confident and with the deeply ingrained belief that they are all equally valuable sons and daughters of ONE Mother Lanka,” said Bertal Pinto-Jayawardena, founder trustee and co-ordinator of the Trust.
Founder trustees Bertal Pinto Jayawardena and Shyamala Pinto Jayawardena presenting the book to Chairman of the Trust Major General (Rtd) Lohan Goonewardene
“Constantly inculcating good values for the conduct of their lives and guiding these youth to undertake social care activities, builds up responsibility, respect for others and strengthens the personality profile of our youth,” said co-founder and trustee Shyamala Pinto-Jayawardena.
The event also saw the launch of a book on the Trust’s significant work with first-person accounts from youth being presented by Mrs. Pinto-Jayawardena to her fellow trustees. The Trust is not resting on its laurels and with the dawn of 2017 plans to launch a National Action Plan to foster unity that will be presented to the President.
More information on the work of the Trust can be obtained at Unity Mission Trust (UMT) on FB and @unitymission on Twitter and from the Web on www.unitymission.lk