Mother Sri Lanka celebrates 15 years

The Mother Sri Lanka movement was established in 2008 with the blessings of the President’s Office by a small group of patriotic citizens who desired to tell their family of 20 million to hold their heads high with pride, believe in themselves and give back to their motherland.  Under the leadership of its founder Dr. Janaki Kuruppu, , Mother Sri Lanka is a non-profit, independent charity with a unique operational model of private funding, public sector infrastructure and managed by a team of professionals from all sectors.

During the past 15 years since inception, Mother Sri Lanka has carried out numerous projects to instil the values of responsible citizenship, ethnic harmony and national pride among Sri Lankans. 

Building responsible citizenship

We at MSL feel that as the country gains material development, there is a dire need to develop a feeling of responsibility among our citizens to appreciate the resources given to us as citizens.  Hence, we have embarked on this endeavour of building a ‘Responsible Citizenship’ with our children starting from their school days.  We are the first and probably the only organisation focusing on developing responsible citizens that we believe is an essential component for the country to progress.

Mother Sri Lanka’s flagship schools program named MSL Project RUN was launched in 2012, as a concept of Dr. Janaki Kuruppu with the blessings of the Education Ministry.  MSL Project RUN has become the practical aspect of Citizen Education a subject that will eventually help build responsible citizens. The project has been introduced to 2,600 schools islandwide and has shown an excellent progress since its inception. 

Mother Sri Lanka “Love Sri Lanka” project:  Building sustainable livelihoods and protecting authentic Sri Lankan products

It was launched in 2016, with the aim of protecting livelihoods of micro entrepreneurs engaged in the production of authentic Sri Lankan products.  The final outcome of the project is to alleviate poverty in the vulnerable segments of society, women’s empowerment and ensuring the continuity of the production of authentic Sri Lankan products for the future generation.  The project is a non-profit, self-financed venture and approximately 125 micro entrepreneurs from 10 districts with over 1,000 families directly and over 5,000 families indirectly benefit from this MSL initiative.  

MSL Project RUN, an acronym of three powerful components, Responsible citizenship, Unity and National pride is a unique concept where children are motivated and encouraged to design projects that help uplift lives and enrich communities across the island. The holistic objective of this project is developing a ‘Responsible Citizen’ while instilling positive thinking and the values of ethnic harmony, leadership and teamwork. The project also focuses on enhancing entrepreneurship, leadership qualities and project management skills of the youth that would eventually develop students who are strategic thinkers, analysts, motivators and group achievers who can contribute towards nation building at a young age.

National level winning schools of project RUN awarded computer labs

In the last round of the Project RUN competition held in 2022/23, around 150 schools have carried out Project RUN and of them 75 schools participated at the provincial finals. Eleven schools were selected as provincial winners while another three schools were selected as all island winners and recognised at the final award ceremony held at the Temple Trees auditorium, graced by the presence of Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena. Three national level winning schools in rural areas in Chunnakam, Jaffna, Walasmulla and Bandarawela were awarded computer labs that were handed over to the schools in the presence of officials of Mother Sri Lanka and representatives of the sponsor, the Commercial Bank of Ceylon.