Have the people of Sri Lanka failed? The answer is straight forward; No.

The road may seem long, especially from the winding petrol and gas queues around the country but the people of Sri Lanka reflect the staunch willpower of the nation. Sri Lanka encompasses a striving, resilient and hardworking people, adamant to rise up stronger than before by inventing and innovating better.

Thus, in these challenging times, one will see that the ordinary people, whether in the south or the north or elsewhere, are working hard. They are working hard for their food security, for their traditional knowledge in medicine and nutrition to be uplifted and for economic revenue in tourism and diverse exports. It is our national duty to boost the morale of our people. 

The Harmony Page of the Daily FT in the past weeks increased portraying the resilience of Sri Lankans and those domiciled overseas, who in diverse ways seem adamant to rescue the country.  While our edition this week also features this goal, we are embarking on a stronger portrayal of the resilience of the people of Sri Lanka. In this page and in collaboration with Daily FT and other national institutions in Sri Lanka we will be organising public showcasing of the people’s contribution to normalising the economic situation for the benefit of their fellow countrymen. 

Carried out in partnership with national and international institutions including tourist establishments and with the support of Sri Lankan expatriates, we will be focusing on national and international based portrayals of Sri Lanka’s people striving for combating the current crisis.

One key aim is to boost rural exports and a people-oriented, traditional knowledge linked tourism while introducing holistic humanity based tourism concepts sometimes missed out in macro tourism strategising. Tourism linked to Sri Lanka’s indigenous medical system, the Sinhala wedakama as well as Siddha, Unani will be especially portrayed by showcasing COVID time narratives of Sinhala Wedakam physicians who undertook the challenge of successfully treating COVID patients in their thousands despite lack of policy related encouragement. Such narratives are to be made public so that in any other global virus situation Sri Lanka will not again squander its foreign currency by ignoring its local medicinal treasure trove which authentically showcased will make Sri Lanka a leading force in the world in wellness-based tourism.

Although Sri Lanka has received international publicity for diverse negative aspects including the ethnic conflict, the national unity that exists on an everyday basis between ethnic and religious communities is largely lost as the media often does not seek out these stories.  Hence, the Harmony page which is dedicated to giving energy to what is peaceful, beautiful, motivating and knowledge based value, will hope to showcase narratives linked to a parallel initiative it is involved in, on developing a traditional knowledge based national peacebuilding model. 

The first phase of this initiative was carried out at the Northern Governor Secretariat in Jaffna in February this year, led by mass communication practitioner and traditional knowledge promoter Frances Bulathsinghala, in collaboration with the Northern Governor Secretariat, supported by the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR). 

As continuation of this initiative and supporting people-oriented efforts towards peacebuilding and domestic tourism, the Harmony page is this week featuring as two separate articles, the efforts of Christy Richards to kickstart the Sri Lankan food series at Cinnamon Grand and the endeavours led by the current Cinnamon Grand General Manager Dharshana Gallage, to boost the tourism morale of the country. 

Sri Lanka regional cuisine promotion starts with Jaffna