Unity Mission Trust hosted ‘Dawn’ art expo and auction kicks off today
Wednesday, 1 April 2015 01:39
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The Ekamuthu Oray Makkal Unity Mission Trust (UMT) will host an art exhibition titled ‘Dawn’ on 1 and 2 April, at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery, in order to raise funds for all upcoming UMT programs across Sri Lanka.
‘Dawn’ is a special art project uniting outstanding student artists from the North and South of Sri Lanka, in partnership with Colombo Art Biennale and the Shyamala School of Art. In addition, renowned Sri Lankan artists are donating pieces of art as a means of financing the Trust’s work at a grassroots level.
The purpose of the special art exhibition and silent auction is to raise funds and strengthen the Trust’s efforts to build bridges of friendship and reconciliation, a task it has undertaken consistently with considerable success since 2009. Unity Mission Trust is a non-profit, voluntary trust that is committed to fostering unity, integration, healing and reconciliation between the youth of the North and their peers across Sri Lanka, since May 2009.
In preparation for this exhibition, The Unity Mission Trust has conducted two art workshops in Jaffna and Matara, with outstanding students from the area who were, nominated by the Provincial Education Ministries, attending the event. The students created several high quality works of art and these creative pieces of work will be exhibited under the theme of ‘A New Sri Lanka – Unity through Art’ and will also be available for sale.
Commenting on the upcoming exhibition Bertal Pinto-Jayawardena (Founder Trustee and Coordinator of Unity Mission Trust), stated: “The Unity Mission Trust has been making a positive impact in the lives of thousands of young people across Sri Lanka. Art is one of the greatest tools of expression, and we wanted to conduct this special exhibition to not only raise funds for UMT, but to also showcase the work we do across the nation, where art is utilised as one of the mediums through which unity, healing and integration is fostered.”
The Unity Mission Trust is governed by a Board of Trustees; a fully volunteer based executive and operations committee, and is strengthened by a regional network of youth leaders, spread across Sri Lanka, as well as a National Youth Leadership Council. The work of the Trust began in 2009, with the sole purpose of fostering unity, integration, healing and reconciliation amongst the youth of the North and their peers across Sri Lanka.
The Trust uses a platform of personal capacity enhancement, self-confidence empowerment and leadership development at a series of four-day residential Unity Camps for over 500 youth at a time, from across Sri Lanka, as well as at one-day ‘Unity through Leadership’ programs.
The Trust has completed 21 major programs since May 2009 to date; has over 6,000 youth linked in through nine regional councils across Sri Lanka; has a network of nearly 350 partner schools and has 180 youth leaders who are between 20 to 25 years of age who volunteer as coordinators at a regional level. The Trust also has a core base of volunteers in Colombo as well as an annually elected National Youth Leadership Council comprising a management team of 18 youth.
The work done by the Trust is approved by the Ministry of Education and by the Ministries of Education in the Northern and Southern Provinces, as well as by all the Governors of North, South and Central Sri Lanka. The Trust has also received significant support from caring and concerned members of the public and recently partnered with leading musicians Rohan and Ishan De Lanerolle, who were appointed as the Unity Mission Trust’s first-ever Brand Ambassadors in 2015.
