by Nandasiri Wanninayaka

THE BEGINNING OF THE EVILLAGE REPLICATION PROJECT

 Having heard about the Mahavilachchiya eVillage project, Mr Lalith Weeratunga, the Secretary to the President was communicating with me since 2005. But it was in October 2006 he could visit Mahavilachchiya in person to see the ICT related developments in Mahavilachchiya. We invited him to be the Chief Guest of the launch of the mesh internet project in Mahavilachchiya in his capacity as the Chairman of the Telecommunication Regulatory Committee. The TRC had been flexible in providing us the relevant frequency to make the mesh network possible. To do the presentations at the event, we used very young students (Grade 7, 8) of Horizon Lanka Academy and Mr Weeratunga was greatly pleased to see how junior students of a rural village could do an English language presentation with multimedia support, handling everything on their own.

Young students of HL preparing for the presentation

Mr Weeratunga’s speech can be seen by visiting the below links:

Mr Weeratunga’s speech

Part I 

Part II

Mr Weeratunga promised to get the President’s attention to Mahavilachchiya and encourage him to replicate Mahavilachchiya model eVillages islandwide. Mr Weeratunga kept his promise and the President, in his capacity as the Minister of Finance as well, allocated 100 million Lankan Rupees to replicate Mahavilachchiya model eVillages islandwide from the national budget for 2007. Unfortunately, this was not materialized in full as the said amount was not allocated though the budget was passed at the parliament. Only part of the money was spent through the Ministry of Education but not a single cent came to Mahavilachchiya, the place where the whole concept was born. Instead, the regular donors and the well-wishers of Horizon Lanka were under the impression that Mahavilachchiya project is taken care of by the government and diverted their support to other projects elsewhere. This resulted in Horizon Lanka struggling for the next two years and the debts incurred to keep Horizon Lanka alive up to a staggering one million rupees!  We are still paying those debts. What is believed is that someone within the government sabotaged the President’s intentions by blocking help for Mahavilachchiya due to mere jealousy. This reminds me of Late American President Ronald Reagan’s famous quote, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.” 

Mr Wanninayaka with Mr Weeratunga

 The government included eVillage replication project to the national budget for 2009 as well by allocating 100 million rupees again and let us hope the government will allocate some of this money for Mahavilachchiya and prove Ronald Reagan is wrong.

We will get back to our story again. With all these obstacles coming, Mr Weeratunga was trying his best to do what was possible. In 2007, he could convince the Ministry of Education the value of replicating Mahavilachchiya model to improve the ICT and English knowledge in rural students. As a result, the then Secretary to the Ministry of Education, Mr.  Ariyaratne Hewage along with Mr. Anura Dissanayake, the Project Director of the Secondary Education Modernization Project visited Mahavilachchiya on February 24, 2007 on a fact finding mission. They came with a team of Provincial Project Managers and School Computer Learning Center Managers of SchoolNet program to see how Horizon Lanka Academy works and how it improves the education of children and youth of Mahavilachchiya.  Mr. Dissanayake, who is a genuine admirer of Horizon Lanka, said that his team wanted to learn from the experiences of Horizon Lanka Foundation about introducing ICT culture at the village level.  He said “My team is ready to run an extra mile to help the surrounding community to improve their life standards.  Those five are representing remote village settings in Uva, Southern, Central, Northwestern and Sabaragamuwa Provinces.”

‘Mr Dissanayake and the officials with HL students’