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| “We
have to give in return” P.O. Box No. 143 and an interview with UNICEF's Representative in Sri Lanka was the beginning of Dr. (Mrs.) Hiranthi Wijemanne's long career spanning 26 years in the service of women and children. Dr. Wijemanne recalls one poignant incident. It was during the height of the northeast conflict when the IPKF was in occupation. She and several others were doing an immunization round in remote villages off Trincomalee. “We had finished in Seruwila and were about to head to another village, when a young woman approached and begged that we save her first-born,” she says. The newborn had a low birth weight and was not suckling. The baby was malnourished and shrivelled up. The mother was helpless. “There was nothing we could do. I took her under a tree and spoke to her. It wasn't really medical advice. Just woman to woman talk; to keep the baby warm, to hold him as close to her heart as possible, letting him hear it beating, to suckle him at the breast whenever he wanted. I spoke to her for 20 minutes,” says Dr. Wijemanne. Four weeks later they were in a neighbouring village, when a woman approached her with a healthy, pink baby in her arms and reminded her that “Mata thama gaha yata katha kale” (I am the one you spoke to under the tree). “No medicines had been prescribed, but the mother had faith in me. It was amazing. It is important to talk to the people you come across. Make time for them,” she stresses. For Dr. Wijemanne, who just turned 60 and retired from UNICEF as Head of the Section on Learning Years, Adolescence and Protection, caring for people did not come with her job. The desire to serve humanity came to her as a young girl after reading about the lives of great people. “The most moving story I read was of Dr. Albert Schweitzer who went to Africa and worked among lepers.” Dr. Wijemanne was born to affluence, the daughter of businessman Mallory Wijesinghe, one-time Chairman of Bartleets and Ceylon Cold Stores. “My two brothers and I had a carefree childhood. Attending St. Bridget's Convent there was no pressure on me to study.” She adds that they had a mother who over-indulged them. She was an atypical girl, not interested in romance or partying. But there was a yearning to be a doctor. Her parents were encouraging and took her to England where she did her English A’ Levels and got a place at Guy's Hospital. But she wanted to do medicine in Sri Lanka. She sat the local exam, passed and entered the Colombo Medical Faculty. In Medical College, some of her views, regarding marriage and having children went by the board when she met Narendra (now a plastic surgeon). “After Medical School I did my internship at the De Soysa Maternity Home and the Colombo General Hospital. Later I worked for the Family Planning Association.” She accompanied husband Narendra to England and did a short stint in some British hospitals. On their return, she rejoined the FPA. A daughter and a son were keeping her busy when she got a full scholarship in 1974 to do a Master's degree in Public Health at Harvard University in Boston, USA. “It was a difficult decision. My children were small. Everyone advised me to go as I had got a full schol. I cried all the way to the airport.” On her return she was doing some work for the FPA once again when the ad for a doctor caught her attention. What tempted her was the opportunity to work in the field of maternal and child health. That was February 1977. Since then she has been an active part of all UNICEF's successes. “I saw it all - the country overcoming the death rates on simple immunizable diseases such as polio, measles and whooping cough.” She was also part of the moment when Sri Lanka achieved Universal Child Immunization in 1989, a year ahead of the global target. When then UNICEF Executive Director James Grant came to Sri Lanka in the 1980s he was impressed that the country had an infrastructure of services for health and education. “Despite the war, there was a one-country approach. The local systems were in place and the local people were used. At that time there was war all over - in the north and east it was the LTTE and in the south it was the JVP. Those were difficult times but the child survival revolution took off without hindrance. An oral rehydration plant was set up, the child-friendly hospitals programme launched, growth charts introduced for children and breast-feeding promoted. It was something that linked everyone together,” she stresses. “We went to the areas that needed us most - a village where a massacre had just taken place or an overcrowded refugee camp where disease was rife. We went by vehicle where possible or walked where inaccessible. There were chopper and boat rides. We just went rushing to where we were needed,” she recalls. Memories of July 23, 1983 come back. Refugee camps had sprung up in Colombo to house terrified Tamils. Dr. Wijemanne got permission from the UNICEF Rep and offered her help to the Health Ministry. “Another doctor and I took charge of eight camps. When I walked into Hindu College there were 8,000 people. The air was full of antagonism, which was understandable. I told them we were not responsible for their plight but had come to look after the health needs of mothers and children.” The late 1980s and early '90s saw the spotlight being focused on rights and the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. Dr. Wijemanne has covered the full gamut of issues -- child labour, abuse and protection, health and nutrition, education and children affected by armed conflict. As Dr. Wijemanne relaxes away from her routine, but still does a little work for UNICEF, she ponders on whether to write a book on children or take up an important consultancy. “I was moved to tears when at the farewell given by the Department of Probation and Child Care at the Pathana Home, where abused girls are housed, I looked into the eyes of these children. They have a certain flatness, showing that the innocence of childhood has been violated. Our work will not end until the last child is not exploited. For what my children and I have had, we have to give in return.”
Vincent Legge - Lanka's soldier ornithologist Having seen service in England and Australia, his career in the army was well established, and equally so was his interest in the study of birds. Even at that early stage he was contributing to natural history journals in Britain. During the next thirty years he lived a very active life and earned recognition in both these fields. His monumental work - A History of the Birds of Ceylon (3 parts), which was published in 1880, is still acclaimed as one of the most comprehensive books ever written on the subject and a mine of information to the amateur ornithologist in the country. It has been said that Legge collected the mass of material on which his book was based during his "spare time" from military duties in the island from 1868-1877. He took three years to write the book on retirement from service. Col. Legge's expeditions took him to all corners of Sri Lanka, travelling often on horseback and with a retinue of attendants, ''setting off along a road that would soon, in those far-off days, become a track and then into the wilderness with all the wealth of the island's bird life to be explored." During such expeditions he brought back numerous preserved skins, eggs and baby birds. He also took meticulous measurements. He kept a flourishing aviary of birds for study and a favourite among them was a Ceylon Hawk Eagle, which Legge mentions as having made "two voyages round the island with me and the trips across the country in a bullock-bandy". Colonel Legge killed a great many birds in the interest of science and did an enormous amount of work preserving specimens, measuring, cataloguing etc. The Legge Collection of the birds of Sri Lanka at the Colombo Museum comprises 678 skins of 278 species. In accordance with the wishes of the late Colonel Legge the Trustees of the Tasmanian Museum gifted this unique collection to our National Museum in 1936. There is also a small collection of birds' eggs. Colonel Legge kept up a continuous correspondence with eminent ornithologists all over the world. Among them were Swinhoe and Pere David in China, Lord Tweeddale in the Philippines, Von Middendorff in Siberia, Hume, Jerdon and Blyth in India, Blakiston in Japan, Captain Shelley in Egypt and the celebrated traveller Colonel Prjevalsky, to mention a few. He was a regular contributor to "The Ibis", the Indian ornithological publication "Stray Feathers", and to the journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Sri Lanka branch) in which he held the post of Secretary from 1870 to 1877. He was a contemporary of E.L. Layard and E.W.H. Holdsworth, both practising ornithologists in Sri Lanka. After Col. Legge retired from the Imperial Service and left the island in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, the Government of Tasmania - his native country, appointed him Commander of the local military forces. He held this position until 1902 when he finally said good-bye to army life. However, he continued with his absorbing pastime of studying birds and published many papers on ornithology and also on geological and anthropological subjects. In recognition of his service to science Colonel Legge was elected a Colonial Member of the British Ornithologists Union in 1903 and in 1904 was made President of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also a member of the Royal Society of Tasmania. Colonel Legge died on March 25, 1918 at Cullenswood House, St. Mary's, his home in Tasmania, aged 78. It is said that in that country his name is associated with a mountain. In Sri Lanka, the name Legge is perpetuated by many feathered creatures, which he discovered and named. |
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