Kiwanis Convention kicks off today

The 37th Kiwanis International Asia-Pacific Convention will be held at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Colombo from 14 to 17 March 2012. The convention is being held under the banner ‘Lighting the Lives of Children’ and will host over 500 Kiwanians from the Asia-Pacific region.

Kiwanis is a global organisation of volunteers dedicated to changing the world one child and one community at a time; this is the Kiwanis defining statement which was adopted in October 2004. With their headquarters, situated in Indiana, USA, the Kiwanis consists of over 600,000 active members in 8,400 clubs in 96 nations.

The Kiwanis Club of Colombo City was the first club to be opened in Sri Lanka; established by a group of 20 like-minded people led by Onally Gulamhusein. The club dedicated themselves to the service of underprivileged children here in Sri Lanka. Subsequently three other Kiwanis clubs were launched in Kandy, Battaramulla and Batticoloa with a key club at the Overseas School in Colombo, focusing on the upliftment of the under-privileged children.

The achievements of Kiwanis Sri Lanka are many and notable, since their inception in 1982 the Kiwanis have undertaken several projects in the areas of health, education and social upliftment for underprivileged children.

Recently in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Kiwanis Sri Lanka launched a project to eliminate malnutrition amongst children in Sri Lanka. The pilot project so far has provided 125 undernourished children of Etul Kotte MOH Division – Baddagana Centre, with Nutri biscuits.

Kiwanis is a Native American phrase which means ‘we make noise, we trade and have a good time’. Anyone who wishes to join the Kiwanis and serve the under-privileged children of Sri Lanka, please visit the website: www.kiwanis.lk and www.kiwanis.org.