Rotary Friendship Exchange - Sri Lanka

The Rotary Club of Medicine Hat enjoyed a social evening, and a presentation by the Team Leader of the Friendship Exchange Team, Gihan Panditaratne.  The group of five Sri Lankan's from various area's of the island nation will spend two weeks in District 5360, as part of this reciprocal visit to a journey several years ago by a number of Alberta Rotarians.

 

Gihan did a wonderful presentation about Sri Lanka, and District 3220 (Sri Lanka and Maldives).  Rotary started in this area in 1929, and there are now 72 Rotary Clubs and nearly 2,100 Rotarians in this District.  He started by saying that they have a warm culture, and warm temperature, with a great deal more humidity than SE Alberta.  There are 20 million citizens in Sri Lanka, about 5 times the Alberta population, and they occupy a space 1/10 the size of Alberta, so their population density is 50 times that of Alberta.

 

 

A club banner exchange was done and we were treated to the singing of the national anthem of Sri Lanka.  From Left to Right are our guests, Melroy Peiris, Darshika Ratnayake, Stephnie Rodrigo, Rotary Club of Medicine Hat President Uwe Krickhahn, RFE Team Leader Gihan Panditaratne and Ryan Dunuwille.

 

Gihan spoke about the climate, the history and wildlife of Sri Lanka.  They have three major animal species who are noteworthy, elephants, leopards and blue whales.  Gihan spoke about the recent discovery of blue whales off the coast of Sri Lanka, which has created a significant tourist attraction to view them.

 

Following Gihan's presentation, Stephnie Rodrigo spoke about a recent project of their District, a Global Grant project in conjunction with six clubs from India.  The bus is a mobile clinic, taken to rural areas and providing artificial limb creation and fitting, vision and diabetes screening as well as other forms of medical care.  It was a great project, which seemed to be supported by a large number of clubs, including the Rotary Club of Calgary Centennial which gave one of the first donations.

 

 

The Rotary Friendship team also took in several other sites, including the Cypress Hills, the Murray Lake Hutterite Colony, the Etzikom Pioneer Museum and Medalta Potteries.

 

 

They also met with the Mayor of Medicine Hat, our own Ted Clugston.

 

 

 

A very successful few days, lots of miles traveled and lots of prairie country seen.  Thanks to our friends from Calgary North (Gerry and Daryl) for being the tour guides and our visitors who came a very long way to spend time with us.  Also much thanks to Teresa Schile, John John, Bruce Shepard, Adolf Seiler, Ted Clugston and the host families for participating.