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| Sunday, 1 June 2003 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Christobel Kotalawela Weerasinghe: Godmother to poor children by LAKMAL WELABADA The comforts of a privileged family background never drew Christobel Kotalawela Weerasinghe away from her endless charity work among the poor.
Today while passing the eightieth milepost in life Christobel, once a diplomat's wife, international broadcaster and an 'alternate representative' for United Nations still renders her service to the world. Teaching English, nursery rhymes and dancing steps to tiny tots has always kept her spirit alive and active. "My involvement with little fairies on the earth began when I was in my early twenties, just after my marriage," she recollected. "It was my aunty, Mrs. Freeda Corea, who was the President of the Ceylon Social Service League who inspired me to take over teaching poor children in the slums at Maligakanda and Maradana area," she said. Since then she has played the God mother's role to the children of the 'poorest of poor' in the country until her civil servant husband, Oliver Weerasighe got the opportunity to serve in the United Nations in New York, which widened her horizons to work for children globally.
The Weerasinghe couple continued their stay in the States (then in Washington) with his new appointment as the Ambassador for Sri Lanka in the US in 1965.The 18 years of living in the States broadened her horizons a lot since she got the opportunity to meet educated people from different countries, and nationalities. Christobel made her name with the rare opportunity to handle a radio programme in United States. The fifteen-minute weekly radio programme 'Tales from the East' broadcast over the WAMU - FM in Washington soon became one of the favourite radio programmes among American children at that time.The programme consisted of stories and music of Eastern countries which she adapted from children's books 'Hi Neighbour' put out by UNICEF. Later with the assistance of UNICEF Christobel successfully did recordings (Compact Disks) for children with folklore and native music of six countries - Israel, Japan, Arab World, India, Indonesia and Thailand. Her service as a broadcaster received honour and recognition from the American University in 1966.Christobel was nominated as the alternate representative at the UN for the World Federation of United Nations Association (WFUNA) from 1956 to 1965. After her husband's brief illness, the Weerasinghe couple bid farewell to the States in 1973 leaving the two children - daughter Menaka and son Rohan there to continue with their higher studies. On her return, Christobel resumed her work at the community service centre. While working with the little ones at the Methodist Day Care Centre at Maradana, Christobel has written four informative story books for children. 'Happy new year in Sri Lanka', 'Festival of the moon' (about Kandy Perahera), 'Grandma's garden' and 'Sri Lankan jungle' are the four titles she is trying to print. The books which depict the culture of Sri Lanka will be her gift to the Sri Lankan children in foreign lands. |
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