Dr Pramilla Senanayake:

A woman of rare compassion

Dr Pramilla Senanayake, Hony. President of the Family Planning Association, Sri Lanka is a busy woman these days. Not that she isn't always busy, but October saw her flying off to the US to receive three prestigious awards for the Annual report of the Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka (FPASL) at the 29th International ARC Awards ceremony in New York City. In this exclusive interview with writer Carol Aloysius, Pramilla takes a nostalgic trip down memory lane to re-visit the past and recalls some of the highlights of her very eventful life, as a medical doctor in the field of women's health & family planning and its emerging issues in the present context.

Elegant, statuesque and strikingly attractive Dr Pramilla Senanayake has not stopped scattering light (her school motto) and brightening the lives of those she encountered on the way.

On the deserted beaches at Kalutara, it was the disturbing sight of young boys roaming around aimlessly, looking for a way to earn their only meal for the day that ignited fears in the young medical doctor, who at the time was working on an HIV/AIDS project in the UK. Her fears that the youngsters would end up as prey to paedophiles prompted her to set up the 'Educate a Child Trust (EACT), funded mostly from her own personal funds. Operated for over 25 years, EACT has every year educated, nourished clothed and counselled over 1100 young beach children, who if not for her timely intervention, might never have become medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, but continued to live their drab lives vulnerable to drug addiction and sexual abuse.

Apart from her own personal charity, which has received tremendous support from her son Priyan, (without whom this project would never have started she says) Pramilla is also involved with a number of other medical and humanitarian charities. She is Vice-Chair of the AIDS Foundation of Lanka, a Council Member of the Sri Lanka Medical Association, a trustee of the Children's Heart Project of Sri Lanka, a trustee of the Neelan Thiruchelvan Trust and Hemas Pre-school Programme to name a few. Until recently, she was the Chairperson of the Concept Foundation located in Geneva, Switzerland. She was also the Assistant Director General of the London based International Planned Parenthood Federation, a post she held for over 15 years.

Yet, deep down beneath this pile of distinguished achievements, Pramilla comes out as a humane, friendly, down to earth woman constantly reaching out to helpless, less privileged women than herself: Women who are economically, socially and physically deprived, side lined and battered. Her dream is to see them free of the many hundreds of inequalities that challenge them and deprive them of these rights. In fact, she confides the decision to do so go back a long time to her early childhood. "From the time I was six years old, I always wanted to be a medical doctor. Thanks to my parents, I was given all the encouragement to pursue my dreams," she says as she traces her long career in medicine.

"I graduated from the Medical Faculty of the University of Colombo and went to England to do my Postgraduate studies, where I obtained my PhD. as well as some other degrees and then I worked for the International Planned Parenthood Federation for 23 years, and as their Assistant Director General, for about 15 years. The position covered work in about 150 different countries," she says elaborating that reproductive health was a field she became interested in while studying for her PhD in the UK in the mid 70s. "I was involved in the medical and technical areas that covered subjects such as women's health in general, reproductive health, contraceptives, family planning and the way women could space their families in order to give their children quality time as well as protect their own health," she says, adding her work has taken her to many locations around the world to set up programs on these issues.

Key role

"During that time we linked up with many UN organisations including the World Health Organisation, where I played a key role in the eradication of smallpox in India. That was a project of the World Health Organization South East Asia Region. I was based in Bihar, a very remote part of India. The villages where there were smallpox cases were so far-off that I began my working days at 6 in the morning, travelling in an all-terrain vehicle to these villages. The terrain after a while was so marshy that I had to get off and walk and further on, it was too boggy to even walk. So I had to hire an elephant and travel on it. It's an experience I will never forget," she says questioning, "After all how many people can say they rode an elephant everyday to work?"

So why did she decide to return to Sri Lanka after living in the UK for so many years?

"In 2003, both my parents were reaching their eighties. So I decided it was time to return to Sri Lanka to be with them. This was the time when most people were leaving Sri Lanka because of the ethnic conflict. My parents were not happy about my coming back, but I felt it was the right decision because I wanted to be with them. I've never regretted the decision; my mother died 2 1/2 years after I came back and my dad passed away five years ago, so it's a good thing I came back when I did." Her thoughts shift from the present to the past and she pauses to reminisce about the Trust she founded to help the beach boys at Kalutara .

Educate a Child Trust

"I set up EACT in 1984 supporting just two boys that my son Priyan and I met on the beach. They were not going to school, even though schools were in session. When I asked them why, they said they didn't have enough money to go to school," she recalls. "I knew it couldn't be true because we have free education, so I spoke to their mothers and they told me that even though education is free, the children have to have uniforms, socks, shoes, books, pencils and stuff their parents can ill-afford. So the kids hang around the beach and get into child prostitution, paedophilic activities and drugs. I found parents kept the girls at home because they didn't want them to get pregnant, but they didn't realise that the boys were equally vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. I decided that I would get these children off the beach, and give them a decent start in life as I had due to the education I received. I saved as much as I could from my earnings, and when I returned every year at Christmas, I would buy uniforms and other things they needed for school."

Tsunami

When the tsunami struck in 2004, around 650 families in that region were affected. Instead of being an observer of this tragedy, Dr Senanayake decided to do something practical and far more useful. "I told myself that I'm going to build these homes back. So I set up a Trust in Sri Lanka and a Charity in the UK and started fundraising seriously. My first big donor was President Clinton. I don't know him personally, but I knew someone who did and he gave me a large amount of money. I got 48 houses built and also managed to find many other people who chipped in. In addition we also managed to donate bricks, mortar and roofing sheets to some others to re-build their houses," she says.

HIV/AIDS

In addition to her medical work, Pramilla is also Vice Chair of the AIDS Foundation Sri Lanka, helping to raise funds for children with HIV/AIDS in the country. "Currently, there are 75 HIV positive children in the country. We look after children, women and men who are HIV positive. They need treatment and hospitalisation, but sometimes nobody wants to reach out because of the social stigma so it's a very sad situation. The biggest problem we have is to get people to come in for voluntary counselling testing and treatment.

Even though medication is given free by the government, because the stigma is enormous individuals do not come forward. So we're working with various groups, to prevent stigma including Lanka Plus, a group of people who are HIV positive. We do what we can to help them find homes, but sometimes it's sad to see that nobody wants to even give a house on rent to an HIV positive person or family," she says.

Happy and humbled by the response to the FPASL Report at the 29th International ARC Awards, she says it has inspired her to work harder to uplift the health and status of all women in the future. Her sentiments were echoed by the Executive Director FPASL, Dr Thushara Agus who told the Sunday Observer, "We were glad to have our Report globally recognised at this largest international contest which honours excellence in Annual Reports.

The fact that we were selected from among 35 countries, which had sent in over 2,000 entries for the contest, makes us proud and humbled, and a just reward for all the years we have been sharing our knowledge with other organisations without earning any profit as we are a non profit organisation. We believe the Annual Report is a vital communication tool that reaches stake holders, donors and the public communicating the work carried out by the FPASL in social development and specifically in areas of sexual and Reproductive Health".