 |
| Newton |
This is Isaiyalan Newton - we got to know in August 2011. Since then he
became "Our Newton". He was involved with LTTE Tamil tigers so many
year during the war we had in Sri Lanka. He was appointed to join with us in
our first ever journey – Kelani Nadee yathra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfcefmB9OkI)
when he was under rehabilitation process. Since then he got involved with all
the Journeys we conducted to create “Green leaders”
 |
| Newton during Kolamba Yathra 2015 |
He slowly got established as true
Green leader. he changed his lifestyle, became vegetarian, stopped drinking
fizzy drinks, fight against environmental pollution and unhealthy life style.
Participated in many training programmes, campaigned and became an
environmental activist and a champion in Northern Province. He learnt Sinhalese
very fast and became the Sinhala- Tamil translator for our programmes. Whenever
we said we have a prgramme he always traveled from Kilinochchi and early
morning 6am he at our office door step. Today he is going to drive his own
Journey - "Vanni Yathra" with the support of Chapa Erandi another young
yathree (participant of previous journey) who emerged through Ruhunu Yathra
2016. After that she became permanent staff member of ECO-V after volunteering with us for few months. Today she is the coordinator to Climate change and sustainability projects of ECO-V.
 |
| Chapa Erandi the Vanni Yathra Southern Leader |
She will take the lead of 15 youth from South of Sri Lanka and will join
with Newton who has his own team of 15 youth from North on 3rd of
June to ride their common bicycle journey together towards sustainability and reconciliation
through Mother Earth!
This is what they are going to
do...They will ride bicycles starting on World Bicycle day (3rd June 2018) for 10 days covering 3 main districts in Northern Province with 30 youth. During the journey they will learn about Climate Change, Biodiversity, Sustainability, connections with Nature, Food Security and food safety and of course they will enjoy Nature by watching birds, connecting with trees while planting more trees etc. They will also create awareness on above topics to general public, security forces and school children. Once they finish the journey, they will go home with their bikes and start empowering their local communities and will become messengers for sustainable living.
So as president of ECO-V and president of Journeys for Climate Justice, I am trying to lead these youth by helping them to raise funds and guiding them in coordination the journey. They are trying to raise some
more funds to cover expenses for buying bikes. Thanks to many who supported us
so far we have collected enough funds to purchase 15 bikes. So we have to buy
15 more bikes and its only 1200 Australian Dollars. Our Australian organization;
Journeys for climate justice came on board again and set up online system to raise
funds for this journey. So I really wish that our blog readers will give their
blessings and contribute even small portions of money to raise some funds for
this yathra. The link for donations is at www.jcj.org.au
and you can use Paypal and pay to JCJ bank account. Aus Dollar 80 will be
enough to buy a bike and a helmet. You can contribute even with a small amount
which means that even one dollar will help us to achieve our target.
So Vanni Yathra is about to start
with youth leadership immerged through ECO-V. This time I will be just the
retired driver of the journey as I really wanted these two to lead the journey
without my active participation. So I am watching them but will be with them
physically and spiritually to be the strength to them.
I know our friends, supporters
and well wishes will be with them too. Thank you for trusting ECO-V and
admiring our work!
 |
| When I lead journey - Paapedi in 2013. |
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment