Rtn. Ken Nirmalan elected as 83rd President of Rotary Club of Colombo

The Rotary Club of Colombo elected Rtn. Ken Nirmalan – a respected entrepreneur and businessman – as its 83rd President for the year 2011/12 at a ceremony held at the Cinnamon Lakeside hotel recently.

“I became a Rotarian 17 years ago. Since then, my wife and I have grown to not only enjoy the fellowship and friendship that was generated, but we have reaped the benefits of partaking in the club’s varied programmes,” said Rtn. Nirmalan.

Further expressing his views, Rtn. Nirmalan said: “Each of us is obligated to level the playing field of life. Schools that have no books, communities that have no water, and people who have no access to medical care, are not someone else’s problem. They are also our problem to tackle. It’s just a question of whether we have the will to do, what we should consider to be the business of Rotary.”

The Rotary Club of Colombo has initiated many community service projects to uplift the quality of life of individuals and communities. Key amongst these are the “Gift of Life” project which sends infants who are affected with heart ailments to India for corrective surgery at no cost and the setting up of the state of the art ‘Cancer Early Detection Center’ in conjunction with corporate philanthropist Dialog Axiata PLC.

In addition to these ongoing projects, the Rotary Club of Colombo has completed a significant number of projects over the past few years including the reconstruction of 12 tsunami affected schools in the Eastern, Northern and Southern Provinces investing over Rs. 500 m.

Almost a decade ago, Rotary International launched a global immunisation campaign ‘Polio Plus’ to eradicate polio from the earth, and today only four countries still suffer from polio. This campaign is considered as a model of public-private sector co-operation in pursuit of a humanitarian goal. As a result of this aggressive campaign by Rotary, Sri Lanka managed to eradicate polio from its hold and today Sri Lanka is a polio free nation.

Rotary International works closely with its counterparts in the world to implement campaigns worldwide for worthy causes and as a result of this network, expertise and funding comes to deserving projects in different parts of the world.

Reinforcing the credibility of Rotary International and its objectives Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation committed US$ 300 m to Rotary International for its myriad of projects worldwide, including the eradication of diseases and improving quality of life of the deserving and the needy in the developing countries.

Rotary International focuses on better health, better education, poverty alleviation and better sanitation in its vision to improve quality of life of communities thereby making the world a better place to live.

The oldest Rotary Club in Sri Lanka, Rotary Club of Colombo was inaugurated in 1929, and now boasts of over 100 loyal members. This year’s theme is ‘Reach Within and Embrace Humanity,’ which is in line with the Rotary motto ‘commitment to service above self’. Rotary International comprises of over 1.5 million members worldwide with over 1,200 clubs which are committed to uplift the quality of life of deserving individuals and communities.