Shielding Our Community: Eastern University Alumni Association's Crusade Against Dengue

In the face of a mounting dengue epidemic, Sri Lanka stands at the forefront of a significant health crisis. With a staggering 73,601 suspected cases reported in November 2019 alone, the threat has reached unprecedented levels, particularly in regions like Batticaloa within the Eastern Province. As the monsoon rains exacerbate the situation, the Eastern University Alumni Association has risen, taking a proactive stance to combat this menacing health crisis.

Initiated on November 22, 2019, the Eastern University alumni association embarked on targeted campaigns in the worst-affected areas of the Batticaloa district. Their primary goal is to ignite awareness and galvanize the community in the fight against dengue.

Table discussion with Professor on Career Fair

We consistently conduct career awareness talks such as ‘gearing towards the job,’ ‘getting that dream job,’ ‘interview skills,’ and ‘grooming training’. Based on the theme we organized a table discussion with Professor M. Sunil Shantha the Vice Chancellor (VC) and senior staffs of Sabaragamuwa University yesterday at the VC office.

As we planned our organization works to mobilize the youth hand-in-hand with universities, training institutions and employers who are major stakeholders in the institution’s output. Training institutions, employers are the ultimate resources for career guidance centers to find out what the current employment trends are, current skills needed to be employed and employer expectations. 

Demand-supply gaps: How to produce skills for IT industry

Introduction: Sri Lanka is poised for growth in knowledge industries and high-value added services and expect to create 1 million employment opportunities by 2020 in such industries and services. Information and Communication Technologies and Knowledge/Business Process Outsourcing are two key industry areas that are expected to considerably contribute towards this growth. It is expected that IT/BPO industry will contribute over US$ 5 Billion by 2020. It is also expected that a 1,000 startups in the technology sector will be created by 2020.

The key requirement that needs to be satisfied to achieve such ambitious growth targets is the availability of sufficient number of adequately qualified personnel. Sri Lanka annually produces around 7,500 graduates in ICT and related disciplines. However, an optimistic estimate of the man-power requirements to support the planned growth targets is at least 20,000 skilled personnel per year. Thus, we have a challenging task ahead of us to satisfy the industry needs, both quantity wise and quality wise. Another variable in the supply-demand equation is the skills of graduates produced by universities. While graduates from IT and other related disciplines have no trouble in finding employment, not all are absorbed in to the direct IT/BPO related companies.

Public Sector's role to enhance the entrepreneurial ecosystem

The real challenge of the Government and Ministerial departments is to develop the entrepreneurial policy suitable and sustainable base on the current strength and economic trend. Also to avoid duplication or a borrow model from another ecosystem to try to create change via direct intervention.

To develop a set of general principle to support the enterprise development and the entrepreneurial ecosystem for youth have two approaches. First one is the ‘traditional’ approach that gives importance on building total number of businesses via start-up programs, grants financing, investment and technological support. These kinds of programmes are ‘transactional’. Even though it creates some kind of value but cannot guarantee success. It’s similar to you pick a few successful businesses as winners.

Today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders

Today is very rare to see the good leadership. We are always showing an example of historical leaders from books. Are we setting a good example of leadership for today’s youth? Not recently. We should actually be ashamed of ourselves for the despicable display of leadership that we are witnessing.

While leadership skills can come naturally, children learn lessons along the way that significantly impacts them later in life. The right words at the right time can make all the difference.

As Deon Price mentioned, if a person with poor leadership qualities is placed in a position of authority over a person, an organization or a nation, they will generate more harm than good. So what is leadership? In research for this column I found various definitions of leadership but here is the one that best defines this role.

Sri Lanka’s affected economy depends on tourism and now it could get worse.

Introduction of Tourism Industry: The immediate economic consequences of Sri Lanka’s brutal Easter Sunday terror attacks are obvious. The damage to tourism is the most apparent; investments decisions might be delayed. However, as a country that had withstood more than three decades of terror prior to May 2009 and an economy that had shown resilient growth averaging 5% per annum in that period, Sri Lanka is certainly not a novice in managing the expected economic fallout.

Sri Lanka has a growing tourism industry. Since gaining independence from the British in 1947, Sri Lanka has continued to attract foreign investors and tourists to the island. The country's important placement also enables it to attract transit visitors into the island.

Rural Unemployment in Sri Lanka.

Unemployment has been a serious economic and social problem among rural community in Sri Lanka which cause rapid growth of unemployment among rural youth presents critical social economic problem for the policy maker. Rural unemployment along with urban unemployment is termed as one among the serious problems in Sri Lanka, since it creates a ripple effect across the economy. Apart from the personal loss to individual and their family, it results in lower purchasing power (economically), consumption of goods and services will go down. These will lead to lower consumption of goods production. Lower production leads to lower contribution to revenue to country and it finally affect the economy of Sri Lanka.

Reasons of rural unemployment in Sri Lanka

Unemployment wasn’t widespread in rural areas, since most people were engaged in agriculture which helped them earn a living. Despite droughts, people continue to pursue agriculture. But with the advancement of technology through industrial civilization, textile mills and others sort of factories began to grow in Sri Lanka during British era. Though it led to mass migration of people to rural areas, drought like conditions and lack of income from agriculture created huge unemployment among rural youth.