Early Childhood Centre opened in Sambaltivu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 March 2006, 17:11 GMT]
Mr. Richard Mawer, Country Programme Director of the Save the Children-Sri Lanka Tuesday declared open an Early Childhood Development Centre (ECDC) at Sambaltivu, about 7 km. north of Trincomalee town. This center, second in the 15 such centers in the Trincomalee district was constructed at a cost of about 1.18 million rupees by the Namagal Community Center and funded by the Save the Children-Sri Lanka.

Sambaltivu is a traditional Tamil village, which is returning to normalcy slowly after two-decade-old war and the tsunami disaster in the year 2004, sources said.

Mr. Richard Mawer and his wife were taken in a procession led by the band music of Sambaltivu Tamil Maha Vidiyalam that was founded in the year 1880. The school band, which received musical instruments from the Department of Education last year played for the event.

The guests were received by the first batch of children who were admitted to the Namagal Early Childhood Development Center at the entrance to the premises.

The chief guest Mr.Richard Mawer first unveiled the name board of the center. Thereafter Mr.Mawer and Mr.S.Arulnesan, Trincomalee district manager of the SciSL jointly declared open the building by unveiling the tablet and cutting the ribbon.

Mr.T.Wijerajendran, President Namagal Community Centre presided over the event. The guests Ms Jeya Thambiah, Provincial Director of Education for Early Childhood Development Unit, Ms Vasanthy Jeyaraj, Community Development Officer, Mr.S.Thavanathan, Zonal Assistant Director of Education (Early Childhood Development Unit), Mr.Arulnesan, District manager and Mr. Richard Mawer spoke at the event. A cultural show of the newly admitted children to the center was also held.

Mr.Wijerajendran, President of the Namagal Community Center thanked the Save the Children-Sri Lanka for its financial assistance for the construction of the center and stressed that the center was a blessing for the children in the village.