New Year celebrations with “Friends of Pelicans” and awareness programmes in the weekend

Last week we celebrated Sinhala-Hindu New year which is the biggest cultural event in Sri Lanka. This is the time when people forget and forgive and get-together with every member in the society to start a New Year.

We all visited our parents with presents and kids enjoyed the school holiday as it is full of traditional sweets like “kevum, Udu Walalu, Kokis and Athirasa” All Sinhalese and Hindus cooked traditional milk rice, and eat them at a particular time Islanwide. They all go to temple during Avurudu period to get the blessings. For Thushara and me, New Year was a busy time again as we had to submit a proposal for a grant. But we all were with our parents where kids enjoyed playing with their in-laws and grand parents.

After the New Year celebrations I visited Udawalawa as the “Friends of Pelicans” also have arranged a small New Year celebration for everybody. They have arranged a reception with all kind of sweets and we had a very happy and quite celebration there. I came back on the same day as I had to attend a workshop on the following day. I was invited to deliver a lecture on “How youth can develop their lives by closely associating the nature”. This three day youth workshop was organized by Sarvodaya for 80 children of 13-16 age representing 4 districts of Sri Lanka.

I talked about how youth can sharpen their five senses by closely mingling with nature and how those senses could be used to develop themselves in their day to day lives by respecting, protecting other living beings around them.

Sunday was dedicated to the programme for pregnant mothers where 45 would be parents participated. All parents were very emotional at the end of the programme. They explained how great to know that their unborn baby can be directed to nature conservation and they all said that it was a great feeling and experience they had for the first time in their lives.

Please visit our website (www.eco-v.org) to read more about our work and we have updated the blog with new video clips of pelican conservation project.

Kanchana