The High Commission of Sri Lanka in the UK launched a platform to showcase Sri Lankans who have excelled, thanks to the public goods provided by the successive Governments of Sri Lanka since Independence and decades of solid investment in its people.
Launching this initiative, the High Commission presented a brief video outlining the milestones of the life of Counsellor of the High Commission, Abdul Haleem. The video highlighted his steps and reflects Sri Lanka’s commitment to its citizens.
The video was screened for the British Sri Lankan community on Zoom platform last week.
High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in the UK, Saroja Sirisena said, “Western perceptions of Sri Lanka fail to reflect the reality of the Sri Lanka we all know.”
She said that the vicious attempts to brainwash the youth of Sri Lankan origin is particularly alarming and should be of concern to all of us.
Sri Lanka, despite its modest resources, has achieved impressive social development indicators.
Despite having a GDP per capita which is less than 10% of that of the UK, Sri Lanka maintains a doctor patient ratio of one doctor per 1,000 patients and a teacher-student ratio of 16.5. Of over 10,000 government schools in Sri Lanka, 6,925 are Sinhala medium schools, and 3,240 are Tamil medium schools.
There has been much discussion on religious freedom in Sri Lanka. Pointing out that there are almost 20,000 places of worship in Sri Lanka; 10,089 Buddhist temples, 7,630 Hindu Temples, 2,066 Churches and 2,452 Mosques, she queried whether this reflected a country where religious freedoms were curtailed.
Haleem said that he is a proud Sri Lankan who is thankful to his motherland because he is a product of free education and free health.
His life was not easy as he had to go through the terrorist battle that ended in 2009 and his hometown was in the affected area. Nevertheless, despite the terrorist battle, he had uninterrupted access to school and university education.
Haleem said that his rural upbringing or the fact that he was from a minority community was not a hindrance to join the Sri Lanka Foreign Service in 2009.
He is one of the eleven officers selected to the Sri Lanka Foreign Service through an open competitive examination that year in which five out of the eleven officers were Tamil-speaking, three of them being Muslims.
Contrary to attempts by detractors to show otherwise, one’s ethnicity or social background is not a hindrance for any Sri Lankan to achieve their goals if they have the determination and perseverance.