President Jones attends several programmes in Sri Lanka
During her recent visit to Sri Lanka, RI President Jennifer Jones addressed a large gathering of Rotarians in the island nation and attended a black tie dinner organised in her honour. The grand event was attended by some 400 guests, including the President of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremasinghe and his wife Maithree.
Among the several service projects done by the Sri Lankan clubs that Jones visited, a token tree planting was done by her to mark the One Million Trees Stories of Rotary Sri Lanka. “Under this one million trees programme, Rotary Sri Lanka not only targets to improve the green cover of our country, but also donate 40 per cent of the income derived from it to The Rotary Foundation. Jennifer Jones planted a token tree on the premises of the Colombo Stock Exchange,” said PRIP K R Ravindran.
He added that the Colombo Stock Exchange, in collaboration with Rotary, Sri Lanka Institute of Directors and the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, organised this event as a call to action for environmental sustainability.
Another project in which the RI president participated was the Life Line Project, in which UNICEF and RI are partnering to deliver critical lifesaving supplies to families impacted by the present crisis in Sri Lanka. The partnership synergises Rotary International’s global network that will raise funds to procure essential medicines. The first consignment of medicines was handed over by President Jones to the Ministry of Health.
Jump Start Sri Lanka is another service project that Rotary in Sri Lanka is doing in partnership with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Under this project 500 deserving youngsters in the country are offered an IT scholarship which is initiated and developed in collaboration with Rotary clubs in the Philippines. The first batch of 50 students were presented the IT scholarship letter of award by Jones during her visit to Sri Lanka.
A high point of the RI president’s visit was the postal department of Sri Lanka launching a commemorative stamp to mark the visit of the first woman Rotary president, in the presence of Bandula Gunawardana, minister of mass media.
