Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Congratulations to our new graduates!
On November 26th, we held our graduation ceremony, where 73 students received their diplomas/certificates for completing the course. I'll post more after all the pictures come in, but we wanted to say congratulations to our new graduates and all the hard work they put in to make it to this day! We're proud of you!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Healthcare for the Elderly
Sri Lanka has a free healthcare system. But 'free' doesn't always mean 'convenient'. Most rural areas have very limited healthcare facilities, and people have to travel to one of the larger regional hospitals for most things. For the elderly, this poses a great challenge, as travel can often be too difficult for them to easily make it to the doctor. So a group of our students decided to bring the doctors to them!
On the 10th of November, our students organized what's called a 'Health Camp' at the Rathnagiriya Sinhala Vidyalaya (a small school) in Lindula. This area is very rural, with both tea estate workers and smallholder farmers. So the students arranged with the General Hospital here in Nuwara Eliya to send three nurses and two doctors to spend the day doing checkups and seminars for the elderly in this area. The Red Cross Society also sent some members to conduct an awareness program about common diseases, like diabetes and high blood pressure, and to demonstrate some basic first-aid skills.
The whole program lasted around 6 hours, and around 100 elderly from the surrounding area came and participated. The whole community was very grateful for the work our students put into organizing this for them.
On the 10th of November, our students organized what's called a 'Health Camp' at the Rathnagiriya Sinhala Vidyalaya (a small school) in Lindula. This area is very rural, with both tea estate workers and smallholder farmers. So the students arranged with the General Hospital here in Nuwara Eliya to send three nurses and two doctors to spend the day doing checkups and seminars for the elderly in this area. The Red Cross Society also sent some members to conduct an awareness program about common diseases, like diabetes and high blood pressure, and to demonstrate some basic first-aid skills.
The whole program lasted around 6 hours, and around 100 elderly from the surrounding area came and participated. The whole community was very grateful for the work our students put into organizing this for them.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Sanjaya's Speech
Watch as he tells us the inspiring life story of his uncle, who worked his way up through misfortune to a successful life.
[Sorry about the video quality -- was taken on a camera!]
[Sorry about the video quality -- was taken on a camera!]
Yashodara's Speech
Watch Yashodara's speech about the life of Hans Christian Anderson and what we can learn from it.
[Sorry about the video quality -- was taken on a camera!]
[Sorry about the video quality -- was taken on a camera!]
Nazeera's Speech
Here you can watch Nazeera's humorous speech about how a person's favorite color can help us learn about their personality.
[Sorry about the video quality -- was taken on a camera!]
[Sorry about the video quality -- was taken on a camera!]
Partheeban's Speech
Here you can watch the speech Partheeban gave about the bad effects of advertising on society.
[Sorry about the video quality -- was taken on a camera!]
[Sorry about the video quality -- was taken on a camera!]
Annual Speech Banquet 2011
Every year, around this time, we hold our annual speech banquet. In case you are new to BHA, our speech banquet is a special event where students get a chance to show their public speaking skills developed through the year and practice how to behave in a formal business dinner. We have a competition and pick the best speaker from each of the four groups to deliver their speech at the event. This year, we also had a group of students give a presentation they developed about self-employment as an option for what to do after graduation.
We had several special guests attending the event. Our chief guest was Mr. Danesh Casie Chetty, a retired Sri Lankan diplomat who served overseas for 34 years in the foreign service. Now he is the Executive Director of the South Asia Policy and Research Institute, a think-tank started by the former president, Chandrika Bandaranaike. The students were happy to hear him share some of his experiences in his different posts abroad.
We were also joined by Mr. Tim Pare and Mrs. Yasmene Shah, who volunteered with us in 2009, and then started a similar program to ours in Maskeliya to help the surrounding tea estates (called Tea Leaf Vision Centre for Professional Development). They are just finishing their second year of operation and have been a great help to the area.
The event was held at the Galways Forest Lodge, which made it a special experience for the students (it's a somewhat fancy hotel that most would never have had the opportunity to go to). Despite some difficulty eating with forks and knives, they enjoyed the great buffet lunch provided.
More than the meal (and maybe the speeches), I think the students enjoyed taking pictures of each other in their formal clothes, as you'll see below! :)
We had several special guests attending the event. Our chief guest was Mr. Danesh Casie Chetty, a retired Sri Lankan diplomat who served overseas for 34 years in the foreign service. Now he is the Executive Director of the South Asia Policy and Research Institute, a think-tank started by the former president, Chandrika Bandaranaike. The students were happy to hear him share some of his experiences in his different posts abroad.
We were also joined by Mr. Tim Pare and Mrs. Yasmene Shah, who volunteered with us in 2009, and then started a similar program to ours in Maskeliya to help the surrounding tea estates (called Tea Leaf Vision Centre for Professional Development). They are just finishing their second year of operation and have been a great help to the area.
The event was held at the Galways Forest Lodge, which made it a special experience for the students (it's a somewhat fancy hotel that most would never have had the opportunity to go to). Despite some difficulty eating with forks and knives, they enjoyed the great buffet lunch provided.
More than the meal (and maybe the speeches), I think the students enjoyed taking pictures of each other in their formal clothes, as you'll see below! :)
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| Our speakers and MCs: Nazeera, Sanjaya, Chathuran, Dhanusiya, Yashodara |
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| Partheeban (a speaker missing in group shot) |
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| Our Chief Guest: Mr. Casie Chetty |
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| Our staff |
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