The angel of the poor

Social activist, broadcaster and journalist Lorna Wright passed away on February 26. In this tribute, Leo Fonseka writes of Lorna’s abiding determination to help the underprivileged.

In my life, I had two treasured friends who were much older than me. One was the late Rev. Fr. Marceline Jayakody, who had an impact on giving a poetic flourish to my Sinhala. I have never studied under him formally. At St. Joseph’s College, Maradana, he was my friendly elder to whom I would go with poems that I occasionally wrote. With poetic ease, he advised and changed a couple of words here or there and made my language look and sound much better. When he died, a part of me died.

This morning, yet another part collapsed when I found that another friendly elder who had adorned my life had left us. Lorna Wright, the creator and prime mover of the Watapuluwa Housing Scheme and the creator of the De La Salle Educational Services, had left us in the wee hours of the morning. Nearly thirty years ago, when she walked into my office, I hardly thought that this friendship was going to last that long. The ebullient Lorna convinced me that UNICEF funds should go to Summitpura in Mattakkuliya where hordes of children were suffering without adequate water and sanitation. She made me to visit the little township, a hell-hole then, and alongside the Rev. Fr. Tissa Balasuriya she spent several years encouraging the Colombo Municipal Council, the Common Amenities Board and the Women’s Bureau to provide early childhood education and other basic services to the large community there.

Lorna’s contribution to enhance the wellbeing of Sri Lankan women for over sixty years has been immense. Through the Centre for Religion and Society and as the Executive Director of De La Salle Educational Services, Mutwal, she worked and walked as a colossus in social service action. Women of all walks of life were her parish. The beneficiaries of her largesse have always been women and children.

Lorna was domiciled in Australia but, after several years, she returned to the country she loved so much. She loved its people and worked to help the poor and needy. She was not a political creature and, therefore, the Government of Sri Lanka never recognized her work here in a discernible manner.

Lorna had been flamboyant as a youth. As a vivacious young girl, she was the cynosure of all eyes in Bambalapitiya where she grew up. With several others, she founded and steered the Ceylon Housewives Association in Kandy. In 1954, on behalf of the Association, she met V. L. Wirasinha, the National Housing Commissioner and Kandiah Vaithialingam, the Permanent Secretary. In one sitting, she demanded and convinced them of the importance of giving salary loans to public servants for housing purposes. She offered sound logic. If the government could give a salary loan to public servants to buy a vehicle which depreciates each year, why not a loan to buy land and build a house which appreciates in value?

She returned from Colombo jubilantly with approval in principle, and working with the other members of the Association, negotiated and purchased a large, run down coconut estate in Watapuluwa for the purpose. Soon 250 public servants were constructing their own houses in Kandy. Today, Watapuluwa remains a living memorial to Lorna Wright.

Due to this visionary, the housing policy in Ceylon was changed forever. It became government policy to issue housing loans to public servants. Until then, the national housing strategy was focusing on building costly middleclass flats such as the ones built in Bambalapitiya, Armour Street and Kiribathgoda. The policy changed, thanks to the fighting spirit of a woman who was always Wright.

In later years, she helped the De La Salle Community develop one of their most accomplished vocational training and character formation centres for youth. For many years she was its fundraiser and Executive Director. Over the years, thousands of men and women have been provided with technical and vocational skills to earn a living in a respectable manner. Character formation and moral education was part of her training.

The service that she rendered to help the youth, particularly women, must be studied and analyzed. Recording her accomplishments for posterity will help learn many lessons of good practices and inspire others of the ilk to devote their strength and energy the way Lorna had done in Sri Lanka and in Australia for which she had earned accolades and awards from overseas. A few years ago, the Government of Australia conferred on her one of its highest honours for humanitarian service. Similarly, the SAARC Association of Women too honoured her with a life-time award for her contribution to enhance the wellbeing of women in Sri Lanka.

In her youth, Lorna was a sought-after radio broadcaster and journalist. For several years, she edited a Women’s page in the Ceylon Observer. Her life was dedicated to reduce poverty. She was the person who resuscitated the urban interest in Kolakenda and Hath Malu, the two nutritious food items that the Sri Lankans savoured in the years gone by. Today, the roadside sign boards of ‘Kola Kenda For Sale’ reminds me how she came to UNICEF in 1979 and talked her way through to convince me to provide funds to popularize the idea through the schools network with supporting stars such as principal Jezima Ismail.

Sri Lanka was her birthright and she served it ardently to the end. Her conversations were all about the poor - their income, education, nutrition and recreation. She walked with the rich but sat with the poor. That was where her heart was and will be forever. I recently read a newspaper article which referred to Lorna Wright as the Angel of the Poor. She was more than an angel. To the poor in Colombo North, the Sudu Nona was their Guardian Angel.

A few weeks before her hospitalization, she called her friend Okama Brooks of UNDP, J. B. Muller and me and ‘pleaded’ with us to help her convert a dump yard in Blomendhal Street into an accessible playground for recreation of children and youth of the nearby low income settlements. That was Lorna. May her soul rest in peace.