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Sri Lankans are known to create world records. They created records not only in our own country, but also on foreign soil during the past two to three decades or even before. A Sri Lankan was elected to British Parliament two decades ago. Some of our doctors had performed miraculous surgeries on patients here and abroad. Sports lovers will not forget how the leading swimmer Kumar Anandan placed his name in the Guinness book of world records by crossing the Palk Strait within a limited number of minutes. Now the Sri Lankan young blood also have started creating records. The two-day `Colombo Wall’ art work exhibition, conducted on Thursday around the Beira Lake and Perahara Mawatha area was a fine example to this. The one-kilometre long art work was completed by schoolchildren during a short period of four days and it is considered as the longest ever painting so far done by schoolchildren in the world. Over 2000 schoolchildren from nearly 150 schools in the Western Province made tremendous effort to draw over 400 colourful paintings for the exhibition to mark the `World’s Tourism Day’ which fell on September 27. Participants were asked to draw their perception of Colombo in 10 years.
The `Colombo Wall’ art exhibition was conducted by Sri Lanka Tourism in collaboration with the Education Ministry under the theme ` How we see future Colombo’. The objective of this program was to promote the country’s tourism industry. In addition to schoolchildren, a large number of people including foreign tourists viewed the paintings for two days. President Mahinda Rajapaksa made a surprise visit to the Beira Lake area on Thursday to see the exhibition. He was delighted with the paintings. The President made special thanks to the schoolchildren who were present during his visit. He appreciated children for the effort taken by them to produce colourful paintings and the encouragement extended to promote the country’s tourism sector. Almost all children took a keen interest to finish their paintings within a short duration. The little sunshine at noon or the little drizzles in the evenings did not bother these young artists to perform their duties. Some children completed their paintings within few hours and some others took a day to complete the paintings. The children got together for a common purpose and completed their team work irrespective of ethnic differences. Some paintings depict places such as sea beaches and ancient places of popular tourist attraction and also the beauty of upcountry, the road network in Colombo and also highrise buildings that will be constructed in the coming years. When interviewed the heads of several Colombo schools on `Colombo Wall’ art work program, all of them highly appreciated the schoolchildren’s participation in the tourist promotion program and said that this nature of programs will motivate children to indulge in more development activities. A teacher from Royal College, Colombo said this was a novel experience to children and not only the Sri Lanka Tourism, other institutions too should encourage children by organising similar programs. The head of Lumbini Maha Vidyalaya thanked Education Ministry to allow schoolchildren to take part in this program and requested officials to permit them to actively participate in various other programs, such as dengue eradication and agricultural development programs. A teacher of Dharmapala Vidyalaya, Pannipitiya thanked schoolchildren for extending their participation at the` Colombo Wall ‘ art program and proposed the Government to introduce a school subject related to the tourism industry. He said even in foreign countries tourism is taught as a school subject. A Banker, Menaka Weerasinghe commended the Colombo Wall art program and proposed the Sri Lanka Tourism to hold such programs even in Kandy and also in Jaffna since tourism could be highly promoted in the North during the next five years. The `Colombo Wall’ art work program was also highly commended by persons involved in the tourism industry. They thanked the Sri Lanka Tourism for promoting the country’s tourism in different ways and proposed the Government to hold such art work programs very often in Colombo and even in other areas since it will be a showcase to improve the local tourism industry.Sri Lanka Tourism, Chairman Dr. Nalaka Godahewa highly commended the effort made by schoolchildren to draw wall paintings and said that the Government’s objective is to promote the industry not only in Colombo but also in other destinations. He said such wall paintings will be carried out in other areas too with the participation of schoolchildren. He said his aim is to empower youth to look at the tourism industry as a career development drive to enhance the economic growth of the country. “With more young people contributing to the sector, the tourism trade has the capacity to become the number one industry in Sri Lanka,”. He called upon young school leavers to join hands in taking the industry forward. Sri Lanka Hotels Association, President Anura Lokuhetti commended the` Colombo Wall ‘ art program and thanked schoolchildren for their immense contribution extended towards the tourism promotion in the country. He said the Government has targeted 2.5 million tourist arrivals in 2016 and there will be direct employment opportunities for over 500,000 people in the country. He also said many school leavers could begin their careers in tourism since it will be a developed industry in the coming years. |
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