2022-03-31-accounts - The Association Of Professional Sri Lankans In The UK (Apsl)

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Association of Professional Sri Lankans in the UK Annual Report for year 2021-2022

Despite the covid -19 Pandemic, this year was a productive year for APSL (Association of Professional Sri Lankans in the UK). In addition to delivering ongoing projects, APSL supported Sri Lankans affected by the pandemic and the economic crisis, organised several successful online events. This report provides a summary of the key activities carried out during the year 2021-2022.

Executive Committee Meetings

Three executive committee meetings were held during the past year via Microsoft Office Teams platform due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

The first virtual executive committee meeting was held on Saturday 03rd July 2021. A review of APSL current project portfolio took place and due to pandemic situation committee decided to continue with the We Sri Lanka webinar series and Virtual Research Symposium.
The second virtual executive committee meeting was held on Saturday 27 November 2021. Progress on We Sri Lanka Webinar series and progress and setting up of Florence De Silva fund and feedback on new membership scheme all current APSL projects was discussed.
The third virtual executive committee meeting was held on Saturday 05 March 2022. The progress of all existing projects reviewed and new targets set for fundraising efforts and events. Office bearers for the year 2022-2023 was also discussed and agreed.

In addition to executive committee meetings, regular virtual sub-committee meetings were held during the year for the APSL Scholarship Scheme, Florence De Silva fund, APSL Media team and We Sri Lanka team attended by the project and event sub-committees.

Projects and Events

1. 17[th] Annual General Meeting

The 17th Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held on Saturday 15th May 2021. Due to the Covid-19 safety measures this year’s meeting was held online using the Zoom video conferencing facility.

Deputy High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in the United Kingdom, Mr. Samantha Pathirana joined the occasion. The AGM was also attended by the APSL Executive Committee, APSL members and representatives of other Sri Lankan associations. At the AGM, a new Executive Committee was elected for the year 2021-2022.

In the absence of any nominations for the AGM notice circulated prior to the AGM, the list of office bearers, nominated by the outgoing committee was elected and accordingly, Mr. Thushara Madurasinghe was elected as the new president of APSL.

Final session of the day was the webinar on “A route to a sustainable future in Sri Lanka through renewable energy” by Prof. Ravi Silva.

2. APSL Florence De Silva memorial trust for children

APSL Florence De Silva memorial trust Fund for children was launched in May 2019 to help children in Sri Lanka.

During the past year, there projects totalling of £3714 were funded including Renovating the Science room of Kalugala Kanishta Vidyalaya, providing meals for pre-school children, providing School band Musical equipments for Karagawela Sri Premamanada Vidhyalaya Bandarawela, Badulla, Renovation of Girls Children home Uppuveli, Trincomalee and Providing IT equipment for IT Room- St. Marys school Maggona . During current medical emergency situation in i Sri Lanka £3000 were allocated to provide medicine and equipment for paediatric unit In various hospitals.

Executive committee also agreed to invest about £50000 from the Late Florence De Silva’s legacy, in order to grow the capital and make funds last a few more years than otherwise expected, exclusively to benefit more children. It was agreed to set up an Investment Management Company consisting of APSL Charity Trustees (nominated by APSL Charity) and then draw upon the expertise of certain APSL members with investment and personal exposure through the investment sub-committee.

At present £1000.00 budget allocation per quarter in place in line with proposed long term investment plan.

Our appreciation goes to Mrs Aruni De Alwis, the executor of the will of late Florence Cecilia De Silva (“Florence De Silva”) for the kind and thoughtful consideration to enhance the well-being of the less fortunate children in Sri Lanka.

3. APSL Scholarship Scheme

The Scholarship Scheme was launched in 2014, to provide financial assistance to gifted but underprivileged schoolchildren in Sri Lanka, under the leadership of Mr Mervyn Silva and Prof Terrance Fernando. Despite the many disruptions caused

by the pandemic, the Scholarship Scheme has continued make good progress during the last year reaching the total number of beneficiaries to 112 children.

The Earth Shot Prize – Repairing Our Planet is a competition held by the Royal Foundation, UK, headed by Prince William. It awards prize money of £1million each to 5 winners annually between 2021 -2030. There was a 5-part TV series covering the 5 goals under which the prizes are offered: Protect & Restore Nature, Fix Our Climate, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans and Build a WasteFree World. Starting from the end of October, we shared this series with our scholarship children via Zoom, one part every month until the end of February. The final part - Prize Ceremony, when Prince William announced the five winners for the year 2021 was held at the Alexandra Palace on 17th October. We screened this episode for our children on Saturday 26th March bringing the series to end

In response to a request by children, a scheme to develop their spoken English skills was started on November 12th, via zoom, with 13 children, aged between 9 years and 12 years. This programme has been running as a pilot by Mrs. Gayani Senaratne and Mrs. Janet Silva, both qualified teachers, with the children divided into two groups according to their perceived ability. Initially it was suggested that the programme would continue for about 10 weeks, but as Gayani, Janet, Mervyn and Inoka (in Sri Lanka) meet online each week enabling ongoing assessment of the children’s interactions and progress. Children look forward to these lessons held every Friday and are beginning to show real progress. As a result, it was agreed that the lessons should continue at least until June or July with the same children. We are also learning about the family situations of the children, some of whom are in much more need than others and seem to really look forward to the lessons and having the contact they create.

As there is a big demand for English – we are looking for more volunteers who could give couple of hours a week to teach a small group of children via Zoom. Donation of used equipment: Last year we received several requests for IT equipment to help children stuck at home to take part in online learning. We also noticed a number of children attending our spoken English classes struggling without suitable equipment. In response we sent out an appeal for used IT equipment. In January, during Mervyn Silva’s visit to Sri Lanka, he managed to hand over 4 laptops and 5 smart phones donated by members of a West Yorkshire church to these children.

4. APSL Cancer Relief Project

APSL Cancer Relief Fund (CRF) was launched in September 2017. We formed partnerships with Kurunegala General Hospital in 2019, Batticaloa Teaching Hospital in 2019 and Anuradhapura Hospital in 2020.

During four years and seven months, we have spent 2.9 million rupees through the scheme and provided 345 financial help payments of 2500 rupees each to

Kurunegala Hospital, 200 financial help payments to Batticaloa 95 financial help payments to Anuradhapura Hospital. We have formed a partnership with Jaffna Teaching Hospital in 2022 and planning to provide financial help for ten patients in Jaffna per month through the scheme.

We want to thank all the medical staff linked to the programme based in Sri Lanka, Wayamba Cancer Society, Cancer society Batticaloa, and Cancer society Anuradhapura for their continued support. Also, a special thank goes to our main sponsor of the programme, Luminii consulting, Ms Lushani Kodithuwakku, MD of Luminii consulting and the team for considering APSL. Also, thank goes to Capital Twin Peaks and to all our sponsors for their continued support.

5. Solar Village Projects and APSL We Sri Lanka

Currently there are four Solar villages established in Sri Lanka by APSL-UK under the guidance of Prof Dharmadasa. These are situated in Kaduruwewa, Pulmudai, Puthiya Nagar and Nochchiya, (APSL- Hela Sarana UK Joint Venture) for the sustainable development of these areas. These were completed through generous personal donations, corporate funding, and support from both charity organisations APSL and Helasarana. In addition, Prof Dharmadasa initiated and provided all the necessary technical guidance to the Monaragala Solar Village project built by Hela Sarana to mark the 25[th] anniversary of the charity. There are four more villages currently under formation with interested parties within Sri Lanka. With the initiation by Ms Paola Bethmage, a “Go Fund Me” programme has been established to collect funds to develop future solar villages, but wide publicity for this initiative has been postponed due to current situation in Sri Lanka.

APSL We Sri Lanka aims to raise awareness about,

Sustainable development, renewable energy and environmental protection
A shared and inclusive future for all Sri Lankans, and
Stronger institutional capacity for good governance

During the 2021-22 period, APSL We Sri Lanka held two well attended webinars.

Award-winning scientist Ravi Silva CBE , presented a very insightful talk on ‘ A Route to a Sustainable Future through Renewable Energy.’ He spoke about the critical importance of a carbon neutral economy to avert disastrous global warming, sufficiency of renewable energy, especially solar power to fulfil the world’s energy requirements, and how hydro power generation in the hill country of Sri Lanka and solar power can work together to boost renewable energy production.

Youth leader and conflict transformation specialist, Prashan De Visser, presented an inspiring talk about ' Motivating young people to nurture inclusivity, and sustain racial and religious harmony in Sri Lanka.’ Prashan is Founder President of Sri Lanka Unites and Global Unites which form an international movement for transforming conflict in 13 countries, engaging nearly half a million youth every year.

Finally, Thushara Madurasinghe, APSL President and Gihantha Jayasinghe, We Sri Lanka Lead attended the UN COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow. They had a valuable opportunity to observe the plenary discussions for the finalisation of the COP26 Glasgow Climate Pact as well as attend Sri Lanka’s side event for COP26 on sustainable nitrogen management

6 APSL Research Symposium

The ‘SLHC and APSL Research Symposium 2021’ organised by the Sri Lanka High Commission in the UK and Association of Professional Sri Lankans (APSL) in the UK was held virtually on 01 September 2021 with representations of 25 universities in Sri Lanka and the UK. The main objective of the Research Symposium was to provide a platform for Sri Lankan researchers (PhD/MPhil) to showcase their research work to academics of the two countries and vice versa and to provide an opportunity for the researchers to interact with experts in their respective fields of study.

The Keynote speech of the event was delivered by Professor Nishan Canagarajah, Vice-Chancellor, University of Leicester, UK and Professor Sudantha Liyanage, Vice-Chancellor, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, delivered the Guest Speech. The symposium comprised 12 academic presentations by researchers from universities in Sri Lanka and the UK under four sessions.

7. APSL Webinar Series -We Sri Lanka

APSL webinar series launched to support Sri Lankans living in the UK and in Sri Lanka affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic in early 2020.

APSL We Sri Lanka team led by Mr. Gihantha Jayasinghe launched a webinar series with the aim of fostering peaceful co-existence, an inclusive identity, and a shared destiny, and promoting the sustainable development of Sri Lanka.

8. Emergency Relief Fund

APSL launched the Emergency Relief Fund (“ERF”) on 25th March 2020 to support vulnerable people and deserving families in Sri Lanka. During two years and two months, we have spent 7.1 million rupees through the scheme to provide dry rations for 1650 families covering all nine provinces in 2020, Medical equipment and PPEs for hospitals on 16 occasions in 2021.

A special thank goes to the Association of Hela Sarana, Heal Sri Lanka UK team, The Aspire Community Foundation - Sri Lanka, Medical staff and the friends of APSL who contributed, helped and facilitated these donations. Importantly our sincere thank goes to all our donors for their continuous support.

9. Other Activities

APSL has also continued the knowledge sharing forum for the benefit of Ex Co members led by Mr. Mervyn Silva and Mr. Rohan de Alwis.

APSL took part in Sri Lanka Invest Forum 2021 organized by SLASSCOM is partnering with the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Board of Investment of Sri Lanka, and Colombo Stock Exchange.

APSL also partnered with SLASSCOM Sri Lanka to promote IT BPM trade and investment event in October 2021.

After attending an inauguration meeting organized by Sri Lanka Foundation USA to discuss 2021 Sri Lanka Day Expo & Parade-Virtual Event in August 2021 APSL took part having a virtual booth at the event..we were able to present APSL with digital materials for future events and how we can engage with SLF to collaborate for future projects.

The dedication and hard work by the respective project and event leaders, and the support given by the executive committee and members, was vital for the success of all the above projects and events.

Associatio rofessional Lankans inTh'hEUK AF>SL UK Registered Clwrity No: 1145788 nual Staten*nt of kn)unts 2021 .22 I•XbvJry•d ijy u" IJR

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ Charity Name THE ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL SRI LANKANS IN THE UK members of (APSL)

On accounts for the year 31ST MARCH 2022 Charity no 1145786 ended (if any)

Set out on pages

(remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended DD / MM / YYYY .

Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation basis of report of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention (other than that disclosed below *) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
the accounts do not accord with the accounting records

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply.

Signed: Date: 30/01/2023 Name: ROSHAN KOMBALA VITHARANAGE Relevant professional ASSOCIATE FINANCIAL ACCOUNTANT qualification(s) or body INSTITUE OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTANT (IFA) (if any): Address: OFFICE 29, 58 PEREGRINE ROAD , HAINAULT , ILFORD IG6 3SZ

October 2018

IER

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

October 2018

IER