Unity Camp 6 - Killinochchi - From the heart and from the Camera lens !

From: Bertal Pinto-Jayawardane 
Date: Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 6:49 PM
Subject: Unity Camp 6 - Killinochchi - From the heart and from the Camera lens !

Dear All,

Please do permit me to share the following with you ! ....Its been a few days since our 6th Unity Camp ended at Killinochchi.......but the memories of the nearly 500 student leaders and the unity they created in 20 Groups do not easily fade away!

- This mail is mainly to say THANK YOU to all those who prayed for us; surrounded us with positive thoughts; funded us and supported us in many different ways to help make our 6th Unity Camp very successful in terms of achieving our end -objectives.

- Starting at the beginning; --- we remain very grateful to all relevant Authorities for granting us formal approvals and to the schools that continued to place their trust in us and sent nearly 500 students to UC6. We had nearly 600 on Camp from all across Sri Lanka.
- We are humbled by the feedback that we received from Northern officials and also other State authorities --- the most humbling, was to be told that we must continue to have these Unity Camps regularly because we are making a real difference .....and this too said by a senior Northerner !....some other officials told us that we should have been there 6 months before this !!

- We experienced an element of initial discomfort levels from some students in integrating on Day 1 ---- but this as ALWAYS, was resolved by the last day! - all our Group activity breaks all the inhibitions and inherent diffidence and help to build new friendships!
- I am particularly grateful to a group of students from our Host location school, Killinochchi Central College for the effort they successfully made to convince some of their area students, to give it a " go" in terms of getting more into the flow of the overall integration efforts being made !

- As I started this mail, I received information that a number of Schools of the Killinochchi area had had School Assemblies in this last week and had got students to talk of their experiences at Unity Camp ! I was so happy when I heard, that a leading school had re-awarded the Special Unity Award we made at Camp to their Head Prefect, once again, at their school assembly in front of all Students !.....

-On the last day, as we have seen happen at the end of all our previous Unity Camps, we saw these 18, 19 year old students crying because they had to say farewell; it brought tears to the eyes of adults to watch the way a final Group hug and group cheer were being given and made AFTER the Camp had finished and they were about to board their buses to go home.
- At our Open Forum, which is the one but the final act on the 4 day Camp, we had student leaders breaking down with sheer emotion !.......and the final session had the traditional Unity Mission Trust candle lighting ceremony .........and what an emotional experience for all those present to hear 600 voices screaming out together " Sri Lanka...Sri Lanka ....Sri Lanka ..."

- The Most Outstanding Unity Camper Awards , were in the memory of our former Original Trustee, The Lakmali Nanayakkara Memorial Trophy and was won respectively by Krithiha Ratneswaran of Girls High School Kandy and Malin Udaya Kumara from Prince College, Ratnapura. The Best Group Leader Awards were won by Rushdi Hannan of St Anthony's College, Katugastota as the Best Male Group Leader and Rasinka Jayasinghe of St Joseph's Girls College Kegalle, for the Best Female Group Leader.

-Ramesh Sushmitha of St Theresa's Girls College Killinochchi and S Selvakumar of Killinochchi Central College won Special Unity Awards.

-In addition there were a number of award winners for Oratory in all 3 languages, Singing, Drama, Sports, Art and Craft etc. I distinctly recall that the Oratory Competition on a theme of Powering Dreams for Unity , that a student from Methodist College Colombo was the English language winner; a student from Mahamaya College Kandy was the Sinhala winner and a student from Vavuniya was the Tamil Oratory winner.

- The Unity Mission Trust was also able to LAUNCH a new development of having Group Supervisors ALMOST ENTIRELY from the Regions, thus increasing and enhancing the depth of leadership capacity of UMT .....AND of having a new set of young leaders, all former Group Leaders, actively contributing towards Leadership of the Programme.

THANK YOU, to all those of you have helped us to keep working, in the way we can, to foster Unity and Integration, building bridges of friendships ....fostering the building of a New Sri Lanka, made stronger by the Unity of our Young Leaders from across Sri Lanka !

Please find attached herewith a few pictures ...including a group photo of the 40 Group Leaders who helped run Unity Camp 6 !

Please do continue to support our continuing Journey of Love and Care !

sincerely,
Bertal--

Bertal Pinto- Jayawardena
Founder Trustee / Co-ordinator

Ekamuthu Oray Makkal Unity Mission Trust
( A legally executed non -profit Trust)
Phone : 0773660103
website - www.unitymission.lk
Registered Address : 137/6, Kalalgoda Road, Pannipitiya;