Scout group at Trinco orphanage holds festival

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 January 2003, 19:27 GMT]
Orphaned children who have formed a scout group at the Uppuveli Sivananda Thabovanam Children Home in Trincomalee held a Scout-Farmers festival Sunday evening.

Mr. Anton Balasingham, Trincomalee District Judge and the President of the Trincomalee District Scout Association, was the chief guest.

A scout lighting the traditional oil lamp at the festival.

Forty scouts of Thabovanam children home participated in the festival. Twenty-eight scouts from Mannar district and 22 from Trincomalee schools also joined the Thabovanam scouts, Officer-in-Charge of the Scout Group at Sivananda Thabovanam, Mr.S.Rajaranjan, said in his welcome address at the festival.

Members of the Thabovanam children home scout group have cultivated about ten-acre paddy field belonging to the institution. Crops are now three month old and will be under harvest in a few weeks' time. Hence they decided to have this event named as Scout-Farmers' festival, Mr.Rajaranjan said.

Mr.Rajaranjan said members of the Thabovanam scout group are war orphans. This is the first scout group formed in a children's home in the Trincomalee district outside schools.

Thabovanam Managing Trustee Mr.Kuralamutham Vinayagasothy presiding over the event said, "We introduced scouting to children of our home to inculcate duty consciousness and personality development at a tender age. Serving the community should be considered a duty. We could observe considerable positive changes in the behaviour of the children after becoming scouts."

Trincomalee District Scouts Commissioner Mr.T.E.Arokianathan was the guest of honour.

Scout group of the Sivananda Thabovanam children's home