South Asia Partnership Sri Lanka (SAPSRI) celebrated its 30th anniversary in presence of a large gathering of distinguished community workers, NGOs, representatives of the international organizations in Sri Lanka, corporate sector and public sector representatives.
Mr.L.J.K. Hettiaratchi, Chairman, Board of Governors SAPSRI welcome the participants and briefly narrated the past services of the organization over the past 30 years with the support of 36 funding agencies in 13 of the administrative district and the intention of activity expansion in to other district in the coming years.
After giving a brief introduction of the past performances and the present activities of SAPSRI, Dr. M.U.A.Tennakoon, Executive Director, SAPSRI emphasized that in the organization’s future path, a greater emphasis will be placed on the =climate change resilience improvement to withstand the negative consequences of the on-going climate change following the increasing global warming largely responsible for the climate change on this planet.
Having highlighted the on-going deterioration of biodiversity in the dry zone, he demonstrated a series of actions taken by SAPSRI in Alisthana tank village with the support of GEF/UNDP to enrich and protect biodiversity. It certainly evoked the interest of the participants on the subject.
Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne Founder/Leader of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement made an illuminating speech about how we should go about community development based on “small things that are effective and beautiful’ such as small tank renovation that benefit the small farmers who produce 75% of our food requirement ,rather than running after mega projects all the time. In total agreement with Dr.Tennakoon, he appreciated the SAPSRI move to protect biodiversity which is already an urgent need in the country.
