"the ultimate change"

WIN a Canon EOS 600D – The Rotaract Shutterbug Photography Competition

nooranie — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 08:30:56 +0000

As you may be aware by now the Rotaract Shutterbug Photography Competition which is an initiative by the Rotaract Club of Panadura is now open for ALL Sri Lankans and people residing in Sri Lanka and the Deadline to submit entries closes tomorrow the 25th (Sunday) September 2011.

The categories of the competition are as follows:

Open (Pictorial- Colour/ Monochrome) for Individuals only*
Development through Volunteerism/ Volunteer expressions (Colour/ Monochrome) open for Individuals only
Development through Volunteerism/ Volunteer expressions (Colour/ Monochrome) for Organizations only

*A registration fee of Rs. 100/- per entry is applicable.

The prize for the Open category is a Canon EOS 600D and you can win a Canon G12 and a Canon S95 for the Volunteerism – individual and organizational categories respectively.

The entry form can be download from the Roataract Shutterbug Website

Entries must originate as photographs (image – captures of objects via light sensitivity) made by the entrant on photographic emulsion or acquired digitally. Images maybe altered, either digitally or otherwise, by the Author and artwork or computer graphics created by the entrant maybe incorporated if the photographic content predominates. Please find further details in our website.

The photo prints should be 10” x 12” or 12″ x 18″ (for wide angle photographs) with a one inch margin from all sides.

There are two options when handing over the photo prints to the organizers. The option one is to hand deliver it to the below address and the option two is to post it to the below address. You may send in the entries along with the entry from with “Rotaract Shutterbug” written on the top left hand corner of the envelope to:

United Nations Volunteers (UNV),
No. 202-204,
Bauddhaloka Mawatha,
Colombo – 07.

Entries should be sent flat using proper packaging material. Each section category should be in a separate envelope and clearly marked. The duly filled entry form and fees should be included. The organizers shall not be held liable for any loss or damage to prints and/ or fees.

Call us on 077 65 11 393 for more information or any clarifications.

rotaract shutterbug – ten more days for applications to close

nooranie — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 06:14:13 +0000

rotaract shutterbug :)

nooranie — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:36:31 +0000

This is about the latest photography project in town for people who are eager to take their photography skills to the next level and explore their potential; for who have what it takes to be ‘The Ultimate Rotaract Shutterbug’ and WIN exciting prizes and for the ones who are ready to experience a rollercoaster ride with a full dose of photoantastic moments?

The Rotaract Club of Panadura proudly presents Rotaract Shutterbug – A story with every click! from July to October 2011, in partnership with National Photographic Art Society Sri Lanka, Photographic Society of Sri Lanka, Canon- Metropolitan, Ogilvy Action, Quantei, United Nations, IYV+10 Steering Committee, Maharaja Broadcasting Corporation, MTV and YFM.

This is a photography initiative for amateur and enthusiasts consisting of three main segments

- Rotaract Shutterbug Photography Training (Deadline for applications – 10 August 2011)

- Rotaract Shutterbug Photography Competition (Deadline for entries – 10 September 2011)

- Rotaract Shutterbug Photography Week (Await further details)

Please visit the website or call on 077 65 11 393 for further details or to find out how you can participate and get involved. Click here for the Facebook Fan page.

Don’t miss out on this great opportunity! Apply today!

touching lives

nooranie — Sat, 14 May 2011 18:30:46 +0000

This year the Candlelight Memorial theme being “Touching Lives”, the International Candlelight Memorial wishes people to remember how HIV has touched the lives of so many of us; and how international solidarity has a positive impact on the lives of people living with HIV and affected by HIV worldwide.

Light a candle today (15th May) and remember everyone who died of AIDS.

surgical reconstruction of gullet

nooranie — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 02:30:42 +0000

It is a sad fact that in Sri Lanka, people are in the habit of swallowing corrosive acids accidently mistaking it for water as these acids are stored in bottles without a proper label. This is all the more common in the rubber growing areas of the country as they have acetic acid in their homes. Those in the jewellery trade may ingest nitric acid and those in the battery trade may ingest sulphuric acid. Corrosives such as Harpic may also be ingested with the aim of committing suicide.

These corrosives cause extensive damage to the oesophagus ( gullet ) & stomach. Scarring takes place with time leading to narrowing of the gullet. As a result these unfortunate individuals are unable to swallow their food and become malnourished and whither away while prevention of such acts should be our goal, once the damage is done major reconstructive surgery may be required in some individuals. Restoration of the act of swallowing requires the reconstruction of a new gullet using the stomach or a part of the large bowel. This is a major procedure which takes 4-6 hours. However successful surgery gives these patients a new lease of life.

A project to help these patients has been started at the Sri Jayewardenapura General Hospital. Nugegoda by Dr. Gamini Goonetilleke, Consultant Surgeon of this hospital. Each Operation costs around Rs 80,000 /= including in ward care, drugs, investigations, Intensive care, hospital charges for surgery, disposables and nutrition etc ( surgeon does the operation free of charge). Most of the victims of this tragedy are youth in the 10 – 30 age group. They are from the low income group and are not in a position to spend for this major surgical procedure.

Donations are kindly requested from friends & well wishers. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Cash donations could be sent to Dr. Gamini Goonetilleke or direct to a special Savings Account which has been opened for this purpose at the Hatton National Bank Ltd, 1424, Kotte Road, Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka Account of Dr. G Goonetilleke / Savings Account No.036 020047158

Thank you

Yours sincerely

Dr. Gamini Goonetilleke FRCS

Senior Consultant Surgeon

Sri Jayewardenapura General Hospital

Nugegoda

A patient who was helped by this fund was featured in the Sunday Times Plus of 21/2/2010 and 28/3/2010 (Titles -Deadly Drink & Suneetha all smiles again)

‘Make It Green Again’ – Write your own lyrics for a song to save the earth :)

nooranie — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:03:41 +0000

Earth Lanka in collaboration with The Rotaract Club of Colombo, Hon. Minister of Environment of the Western Province – Mr. Udaya Gammanpila, Voyage Motion Pictures, Evolution Film Productions, IMP, Jetwing, Natanda – Dance Theatre of Sri Lanka and Upali Newspapers Limited is calling for young, enthusiastic, dedicated activist in helping to save the mother earth to compose songs under the title of “Making it Green Again” to be aired as a music video at the United Nations Framework for Climate Change (UNFCC) Conference (UNFCCC Cop 17 summit) in South Africa this year as an initiative of this little island in contribution to the grater collation of appealing for change in preserving the mother earth.

The lyric writing & filming competition starting on Monday April 11, 2011 running through May 11, 2011 will accept entries sent to:

Make it Green Again

689/1, Major General Larry Wijerathne Mawatha,

D P Wijesinghe Mawatha,

Pelawatte,

Battaramulla.

Winning lyrics will receive a cash prize of Rs. 10,000 along with a voucher for a weekend stay at a luxurious hotel of the Jetwing Group in Sri Lanka. Therefore don’t forget to include your contact details along with your submission.

You can find out more by simply emailing with the subject line: “Make it Green Again” to: diliupg@gmail.com

Please pass this on to all your friends, family and contacts and help to “Make it Green Again”

funny…

nooranie — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:47:36 +0000

Sri Lanka’s “Standard Time” website went missing soon after it being launched by the President due to bad weather Read more here What a joke?

2010 in review

nooranie — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 13:19:06 +0000

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,600 times in 2010. That’s about 4 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 3 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 69 posts. There were 2 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 76kb.

The busiest day of the year was September 9th with 114 views. The most popular post that day was Eid Mubarak!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, kottu.org, mail.yahoo.com, beyondborders.wordpress.com, and mail.live.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for eid mubarak, eid, kelani river, eid mubarak pictures, and eid pictures.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Eid Mubarak! September 2009

Airtel M-Broadband on Linux using Vodafone E220 October 2009
7 comments

change is the only constant February 2010
2 comments

river kelani December 2008
2 comments

youth & the new media revolution March 2010

motivating economic optimism

nooranie — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:03:51 +0000

After a long time finally I found some time to write a post. I know that, it is almost three months since I last wrote, but I can guarantee you of a few posts coming up on a conference I attended this week at the Water’s Edge.

Coming under the banner of “Motivating Economic Optimism” the most anticipated International Human Resource (HR) Conference was finally held from the 7th to the 9th June at the Water’s Edge. The International HR Conference is the biggest gathering of HR professionals held annually, which is to emphasize on the dimensions of Human Resources Management which could lead and motivate HR Professionals to make the winning difference in their organizations. The conference is organized annually by the Institute of Personnel Management of Sri Lanka (Inc.) also known as IPM Sri Lanka.

Bringing together speakers of the caliber of Jerry Connor – Director of the Charted Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) – UK, Saagarika Ghoshal – the Chief Peoples’ Officer of Reliance Big Entertainment (Reliance ADAG), Sanjay Muthal – Managing Director of Nugrid Consulting (Pvt) Ltd., Madhu Rathnayake – Vice President & Head of Virtusa in Sri Lanka and Co-Founder and General Secretary of SLASSCOM, Dr. Dan Seevarathnam – CEO & Director of Watawala Plantations PLC, Mr. Ranjith Page – CEO of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC, Mr. Deepal Sooriyaarachchi – Former Managing Director & currently a Director of AVIVA/ NDB Insurance PLC, Pandian Rajan – Managing Director of Ma Foi Group & Randstad India, and other eminent speakers on a variety of HR related areas.

I must say, this year’s HR conference was a real success and IPM Sri Lanka has proved that, they are obviously capable of organizing an International event in this magnitude in Sri Lanka and the pioneer in Human Resource Management in Sri Lanka.

This event was sponsored by Sri Lanka Telecom, hSenid Biz, Taj Samudra, Ma Foi & Randstad, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, APIIT, NTB Bank PLC, HNB PLC, Virtusa Sri Lanka, Mobitel (Pvt) Ltd, and a variety of other companies while ART TV, Lite FM, Daily News and the Sunday Observer were the official media sponsors.

I thought I will take time and write about the different sessions and the learning of the conference one by one following this post. So stay tuned to the journey in motivating economic optimism!

youth & the new media revolution

nooranie — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:23:18 +0000

I wanted to write about this some time back, but never had time to do so. Today I thought I will somehow write something coz it’s happening tomorrow!

Basically FPA Sri Lanka is organizing a forum on new media and youth tomorrow (26th) at the Kannangara Lecture hall 2 of the University of Peradeniya. This forum was supposed to be moderated by Sanjana Haththotuwa, but unfortunately he is unable to come as of last minute urgent work. So basically Dhanushka Gunathilake has agreed to moderate the session.

A little background about Dhanushka: he is a freelance consultant who provided technical guidance and support in the planning and implementation of the innovation fund project 2009 at FPASL. He has been trained in cinematography and direction from reputed institutions such as Sri Lanka Television Training Institute (SLTTI) and Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). Some of the major projects that he has cinematographed are educational fictional films for Maharashtra Knowledge Company Limited (MKCL); Save the Children film against child labour ‘Glass Wear’; AIDS awareness for BBC and DD; an episode of ‘The Amazing Race’ for AXN channel and 20 AD films. His film ‘Year Planner’ won the best film Critic award at WLC film festival in 2008. He contributes as a Director to Biroba Films Pvt Ltd in India and serves as a consultant to Editing Table- Colombo and is a visiting faculty to the Indira School of Communication – Pune in India.The rest of the panelist include; Sudath Mahadivulwewa, Indi Samarajiva, Sanjeevan Jeevarathnam (new Sri Lanka), and Shehan Baranage.

Sudath will talk about “Film making/advertising in the age of new media” while Indi will be touching on with emphasis on Kottu, what he observed when he started and what he observes now and the use of blogs, Facebook and twitter in particular to build awareness and to create a social movement. Sanjeevan would be speaking about IT in business. Young people are driving the market because of their handle on new media and Shehan (news editor of Derana) will touch on “News and new media” the Ada Derana example of SMS breaking news alerts and breaking news website – 24 hours news industry.

There will also be a small graduation ceremony for the participants (twenty two of them) of the Innovation Fund Project who were trained on Film Making (a twenty-five day programme) and also underwent a comprehensive sexual reproductive health programme. These participants were selected from a MO film competition held last year conducted by FPASL where there were over 120 MO film entries. Thirty five of them were selected and invited for the training programme and eventually only twenty-two were left with us at the end of the programme.

A video montage of the MO films produced by them will also be presented at the forum as a cases study of using such tools for change.

This event is open to public and FPASL would welcome everyone interested in using ICT tools for different needs ranging from social activism to political propaganda; from marketing to social networking and from Sri Lanka to the other part of the world!

For more information please feel free to contact Appekka on 0776565166 or email on appekka@fpasrilanka.org or call me (Nooranie) on 0773413985/ 0713813985 or email me on nooranie@fpasrilanka.org or just turn up at the event.