Man behind Lankan voice in Europe

by Ranga Chandrarathne

Although thousands of Sri Lankans domiciled in Europe have been living away from their beloved motherland for generation, one of the principle concerns in their rather isolated lives is the ceaseless thirst for information and news on Sri Lanka in general and of other Sri Lankans scattered across the Europe in particular.

For years the only sources they had, were personal IDD numbers of their kith and kin in Sri Lanka and scantly and often stale second hand information received from visiting Sri Lankan relations.

The situation turned bad to worse ever since the fighting broke out between terrorists and the army in North and East as the Sri Lankan community felt the heat waves of terrorism in Sri Lanka.

Often scattered in diverse parts of the Europe, it was extremely difficult task for Sri Lankans to communicate with one another and to keep the common thread of interaction in terms of culture, heritage, trade and services as an ethnic community in UK and Europe.

Unlike other ethnic communities in Europe and UK such as Pakistani, Indian, Bengali, Sri Lankan community hasn't had either a community radio or a TV channel, although there are several Tamil channels which are often sympathetic to separatism. As an ethnic group Sinhalese had absolutely no voice in Europe.

This has been substantially contributory to making second and third generation Sri Lankans gradual alienating and keeping away from their rich cultural and linguistic heritage compelling parents to rely on Dhamma schools and conducting classes for Sinhalese.

Several initiatives by Sri Lankans and Sri Lankan companies to set up TV channels such as Sirasa, New Sri Lanka, Watt-on were unsuccessful and Sri Lankans were thoroughly disappointed by the Sinhalese channels.

It was against this back drop that Akshin Punchihewa established a media group consisting of Lanka-Udaanaya Radio Programme, Lanka Today bi-lingual newspaper and LakRuwa TV in UK and Europe.

Commenting on the humble start of the group which has now become a platform for linking expatriate Sri Lankans across Europe, providing much-needed information on current affairs, culture, lifestyles and investment opportunities, Punchihewa was of the view that still Sri Lankan entrepreneurs, especially in the spheres of Real state development such as high risers and condominiums and in the tourism, have not exploited the market potentials of the media group as it has European access.

In 1995, Punchihewa established the now popular Lanka-Udaanaya Sinhala programme over the European waves and the programme consisted of the daily news bulletin, cultural programmes and community messages of over 200,000 Sri Lankan house-holds in Europe.

On the strength of thirteen years of experience as a broadcaster, Punchihewa ventured into establishing a bilingual newspaper Lanka-Today with Sinhala and English articles, free of charge.

Now the newspaper has become a primary source of information on Sri Lanka among Sri Lankan community in UK. The LakRuwa TV programme commenced in November 2006, on SKY DIGITAL 826. This channel is also free of charge.

This is a potential market for Sri Lankan property developers, Banks who are interested in encouraging Sri Lankans to open NRFC accounts, hoteliers and allied service providers from booking for local accommodation as expatriate Sri Lankans who visit their relative at least once a year, emphasised Punchihewa on the enormous business potentials offered by the media network.

Currently the group is patronized by religious institutions, Banks, Shops, Associations, Clubs and over 200,000 Sri Lankan households in Europe. Apart from the daily update of news, the LaKRuwa TV telecast best documentaries on Sri Lanka, programmes on history, heritage and lifestyle, tele-drama, films and Educational and Sports programmes.

As Sri Lankans are enveloped in isolation in busy and fast moving Europe, they tend to love Sri Lanka, remembering Sri Lanka the bellowed motherland. This nostalgia is shared by Sri Lankans of all races and religions and they are in thirst of information on their kith and kin and the development in the spheres of cultural, politics and lifestyle in Sri Lanka.

The Asian Tsunami was an occasion when Sri Lankan community in UK and Europe showed solidarity as they collected large sums of money and sent them either to relations or to institutions in Sri Lanka.

Especially, the Sri Lankan parents pay attention to their second generation Sri Lankan offspring and insist on them learning Sinhala and religion, resulting in most of the Sri Lankans interacting in Sinhalese though some of them had never been to Sri Lanka.

One of the principle bottlenecks of LaKRuwa TV was obtaining quality programmes from Sri Lanka which would also suit the wider European audience. Punchihewa reminded that in order to get programmes, intense negotiations had to be carried out with four major TV production houses in Sri Lanka.

First, Swarnawahini tied up with LakRuwa TV offering quality latest productions free of charge while LakRuwa TV provided Europe wide coverage. He reminded with gratitude the intervention made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in securing production from Rupavahini and ITN.

The productions are entertained by LaKRuwa TV on the basis that the TV stations provide the latest production at no cost, in return LaKRuwa provides faire coverage for them.

The cornerstone of the vision of LaKRuwa TV is the promotion of indigenous culture, language under the motto "Our goods, our Services and our products and our people".

Akshin Punchihewa was born in Tanzania to British-Sri Lankan parents and he spent a large part of his adulthood in Sri Lanka before returning to the United Kingdom.

Akshin Punchihewa request Sri Lankan establishments, business personnel and especially the entrepreneurs in construction and tourism make use of the communication platform painstakingly created by him, to attract investments and holiday makers in Europe as the communication network has a European reach with, perhaps, the cheapest rating for Sri Lankans. LaKRuwa TV can be contacted at Lakruwatvgmail.com.

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