Happy New Year
Dear all,
This year was another highly productive year for APSL despite many challenges. We continued to grow the initiatives from last year and improved our community engagement both in the UK and Sri Lanka.
The Scholarship Scheme, one of the most successful programmes of APSL marked its 5th Anniversary in 2019 and currently supporting 95 students in Sri Lanka. With the support from number of new sponsors we expect to increase the number of scholarships to over 100 from January 2021.
One of the major initiatives we launched last year was the Florence de Silva Memorial trust for Children. With kind donations through late Mrs. Florence de Silva’s Will APSL set up this initiative to support Sri Lankan children in numerous ways. So far, we supported 23 projects and donated over 2 million Rupees for good causes.
We have made significant progress with the APSL Solar Village Project and the 3rd Solar Village was completed in Mullaitivu district in December 2020.
APSL Cancer Relief Programme marked its 3rd Anniversary this year and established two more collaborations in Galle and Anuradhapura general hospitals to support cancer patients. We expect to expand the programme in the new year by forming collaborations with Hambantota, Monaragala, Colombo, Jaffna and Rathnapura General Hospitals.
‘Living in the UK’ discussion series for 2020 was held in collaboration with the Letchworth Dhamma Nikethanaya Buddhist Academy attended by the dhamma school children and their parents.
When the Covid-19 Pandemic started affecting the whole world in the beginning of the year APSL started exploring the ways to support the Sri Lankans affected and we launched APSL Emergency Response fund in March 2020. Through this, we supported over 1600 families in various parts of Sri Lanka and provided PPE and equipment to 9 key hospitals.
We also launched a webinar series in April 2020 to provide guidance and information. The webinars featured timely topics such as employment, immigration, economy, mindfulness as well as Covid-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. Those webinars were delivered by leading professionals in their respective fields. Moreover, Sri Lanka High Commission, London in collaboration with APSL and Sri Lanka Association for Software Services Companies (SLASSCOM) organised a webinar to launch ‘SLASSCOM Global Referral Programme’.
2021 expected to be another busy year for the APSL team and we plan to launch number of new initiatives. I and the Executive Committee highly appreciate your continued support for APSL activities and look forward for your participation in the future events and projects.
I wish you all a very happy New Year!
Dr. Mahesh de Silva
President – APSL