Good afternoon my fellow
Mahamayans. It is indeed a great pleasure and privilege to welcome
you to our second Annual General Meeting of MGCAANA. This is a
festive and social occasion to celebrate the sense of community and
our accomplishments, and to express appreciation to all our members
who contributed to make it a warm, healthy and dynamic environment
in the organization.
I am delighted that we
have more members participating in this meeting than last year’s
Annual
General Meeting. Thank
you for renewing you membership and thank you to the new members
who joined the
organization this year.
In this formative year, I
had the privilege of having the unconditional support of incredible
groups of people. They are: (all the names are in alphabetical
order)
The Board of Directors:
Neranjika Dissanayake,
Nilmini Wickramaratne Dorabawila, Vajeera Dorabawila,
Harshi Ehelepola
Liyanage, Arushie Nugapitiya,
The Executive Committee:
Vice President
Geethanjalie Wijepala Selvendran, Secretary Deepa Dharshani
Nanayakara, Treasurer/Web Manager Neranjika Dissanayake
Newsletter Committee:
Nazrana Caffoor, Devi
Subasinghe Gunasekera, Priyanka Bandara Jayakody, Chathuri
Nugawela-Munasinghe
Fund-raising Committee:
Chairperson Nadeeka
Gunasekera Ranasinghe, Samantha Jayatilake Ranaweera, Sumana
Kiridena Samarakoon,
Membership Drive
Committee:
Arushie Nugapitiya,
Iyanka Karunaratne Ponnamperuma
Publication Committee:
Chairperson Vajeera
Dorabawila, Priyeshni Arambepola, Sriyani Galahitiyawa Dissanayake,
Nilmini Wickramaratne Dorabawila, Kanchanakesi Warnapala
Student Forum and Host
and Travel Club:
Vajeera Dorabawila,
Neranjika Dissanayake, Nilmini Dorabawila,
Arushie Nugapitiya,
Scholarship Committee:
Deepa Dharshani
Nanayakkara, Vajeera Dorabawila, Arushi Nugapitiya
Our Honorary members who
are valued partners
The principal Mrs. Indra
Withanachchi,
The main Old Girls’
Association,
The OGA Colombo Branch
And last but not least,
our families and extended families that willingly supported us in
our journey.
Thank you all for your
excellent teamwork dedication, love and understanding.
Mayans have become a
stronger community today with our membership increasing. Each and
every one of you are important to our organization to build,
support, and sustain our community. Your support and trust
strengthen us.
It is my fervent hope
that this great organization will grow in strength and vitality and
accomplish
its goals. We are
proud to be Mayans, we are proud of our achievements, growth and
strength
and we are proud of our
committed members who help make our dreams a reality. As I have
mentioned earlier, we can
envision that the benefits deriving from this great organization are
not only to the
members of today, but for the children of tomorrow as well. MGCAANA
is here
to serve not only
our alumnae and present Maya students, but also some of whom we will
never
meet and may not be born
yet.
Our beloved Alma Mater
gave us not merely the sort of knowledge and intellectual capacity
that
can be tested by
examinations, but also general, intellectual, moral and social
qualities. When I
look back, among the
meaningful influences which have shaped my life, the most
outstanding was
my beloved school.
Mahamaya shaped my culture, gave direction and dimension to my
mental
development which is part
of my life. We alumnae, who have gained knowledge, wisdom, love
of art, above all,
strength of character, we must forever be grateful to our school.
We will rise
above our boundaries. At
this time, when we mark the completion of our first year, I ask our
Maya community to ask
ourselves how we can make a difference in other Mayans’ lives. To
make a difference, we
need to get involved. It can make our lives richer, and build a
more
hopeful future for our
community. Let us share an agenda that calls us to action. We have
a
great responsibility to
serve our community. We need to tread new paths and broaden our
services in our
community. There is an amazing energy in us that we need to tap.
Progress must
always be sustained by
the human thought, human will, and human action.
Today’s complex world,
there are a lot of
things that pull us apart. With promoting the spirit of community,
we can learn
how to come
together by participating in activities in our own Maya Community.
To make a
difference, we must get
involved. We shall not be spectators. That is the true Maya
spirit.
When I visited Sri Lanka
few weeks ago, one of our retired teachers said to me, “you have the
cream of the lot over
there,” I said, “Yes, indeed we do.” So, dear Mayans, we have got
the
ablest, smartest, and
most capable alumnae here and we need to put that capability into
good
use. Therefore I appeal
to you today to join in our efforts to help build our Maya family
here in
North America and in Sri
Lanka. Get involved in our activities.
We need to hear your
ideas, opinions, suggestions, input priorities and wisdom. We must
constantly evolve to stay
relevant. Time to time we need to look at our vision and mission,
and they can also be
evolved accordingly.
We know that there are
more than 54 Mayans living in this continent. Some have not heard
about
our organization. Some
have opted not to become members at this time. We respect their
decision. However, if we
have their contact information, we would send them our electronic
newsletter. They are our
family.
Three weeks ago, Board
member Nilmini Dorabawila, Secretary Dharshani Nanayakkara, and I
got the opportunity to
walk together on that golden soil of Mahamaya, and hand over our
donation of four
computers to the principal, Mrs. Withanachchi. The school is in the
process of
building a computer lab.
It was a joyful event for us. We met teachers and students.
We invite all of our
members to contribute articles, poems, memories, puzzles, pictures,
etc that
are related to school to
our 75th anniversary commemorative volume that we are
going to publish
in January, 2007. Some
members have already sent their contributions. During our trip to
Sri Lanka we met with a
group of prospective contributors from the Colombo Branch and the
main OGA, namely former
principal Mrs. Pilapitiya, author of “With a Fistful of Rice”
Indrani Meegama,
Mrs. Manel Weerasinghe, Geethanjalie Gunatilake, Shakuntala Kuruppu,
former deputy principals
Mrs. Karunaratne, and Mrs. Wansekera. Much work needs to be done
between now and December
for the volume. We give priority to our own members here when
soliciting articles. We
encourage you to write in English or Sinhala, or in both, and send
us within
the next month. Our
chairperson of the Publication Committee Vajeera Dorabawila will
answer
any questions that you
might have.
Let
us pay tribute to our founders, principals, and teachers with love
and gratitude, for their vision, dedication and hard work. Let’s
commend our, matrons, clerks, and minor staff members who had been
part of our lives. Mahamaya has enriched the lives of several
generations and produced thousands of able young women to meet the
challenges of this fast changing world.
We salute the Colombo
Branch for completing 21 years of service, and congratulate for
their outstanding social work that they do in Sri Lanka. “With the
Fistful of Rice” the book that they published about Mahamaya and the
history of Buddhist education in Sri Lanka received great reviews
from the public and the academia. I brought 20 copies of the book
for our members here and they are on display on a table.
Before I close, I would
like to remind ourselves again that we treat each other with
dignity, humility, love and respect, we respect each other’s privacy
with utter integrity, and we are equals as Mayans.
I consider it as a great
honor and privilege to have had the opportunity to serve you as your
first president during this delicate first year. Thank you for
bestowing your trust in me. I thank you all with feelings too deep
for expression.
I am profoundly grateful
to our members in Maryland who worked so hard to organize this
annual event. I know firsthand how difficult it is. Their names in
alphabetical order: Nilmini Wickramaratne Dorabawila, Tamara
Dorabawila, Vajeera Dorabawila, Chathuri Nugawela-Munasinghe, Iyanka
Ponnamperuma, Hemali Rajapakshe.
Chathuri Nugawela
Munasinghe and her husband Dr. Jeeva Munasinghe gracefully accepted
to
host the dinner for
MGCAANA. Thank you Chathuri and Jeeva. Let’s give them all a hand.
Thank you all.
Sujatha Werake
