Season’s Greetings
2019 was another highly productive year for APSL. We celebrated our 15th Anniversary and continued to serve the Sri Lankan community both in the UK and Sri Lanka through our highly successful projects and events.
In the UK we continued the ‘Living in the UK’ discussion series for Sri Lankan children and ‘Young Professionals Event’ to showcase achievements of young Sri Lankan professionals. APSL represented the Sri Lankan professional community at number of high-profile events including the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. APSL marquee at the Festival of Cricket was popular among the visitors and a significant number of new members joined APSL during the event. The highlight of this year was the ‘APSL 15th Anniversary Ball’ held in London in November.
In Sri Lanka we continued to support over 70 children through the ‘Scholarship Scheme’ in its 5th anniversary. The association is in the process of completing the third ‘Solar Village’ in Vanni district, continuing its support for rural communities in Sri Lanka. One of the main highlights of this year’s projects was the launch of APSL Florence de Silva Memorial Trust for children. APSL already delivered five projects successfully through this fund and in the process of funding six more projects. APSL Cancer Relief Network also continued to grow through the partnerships with Badulla, Kurunegala and Batticaloa General Hospitals. The project is currently providing monthly financial support for over 25 patients and well over 100 through various means around Sri Lanka since its inception in 2017. Moreover, APSL supported Sri Lankan communities affected by natural disasters as well as the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks in numerous ways.
The Executive Committee for the year 2019-20 was elected at the AGM in May 2019 and the new committee will continue to deliver and grow the events and projects during 2020. We will also focus on improving member services and introducing number of exciting projects and events to the APSL portfolio during 2020.
On behalf of the Executive Committee I wish you and your families a wonderful Christmas and very happy and prosperous New Year!
Dr. Mahesh de Silva
President, Association of Professional Sri Lankans in the UK (APSL-UK)
