The Sri Lankan American Community had the privilege to meet with the United States Ambassador Designate to Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Her Excellency, Julie Chung, for a Virtual Engagement hosted by the Sri Lanka Foundation International, USA on Friday, February 11th, 2022 at 12.00pm, PST.
A Warm Welcome and a note of gratitude was extended by Keshini Wijegoonaratna, the Director of Project Management and Public Relations of SLF to the US Ambassador Designate, H.E Julie Chung for this opportunity and also to the Panel of speakers, and handed over the platform to Shirani Stanislaus, the Chief Operating Officer to do the formal introduction of Ambassador Designate to invite her to deliver her opening remarks.
Ambassador Designate Chung started her remarks by saying,”I want to share with you and hear from all of you today, to hear your thoughts to leverage partnerships between Sri Lankan American community and the Embassy in Colombo to further support and to form bilateral friendship and relationship”. Furthermore Ambassador Chung continued to say that United States and Sri Lanka has collaborated in a wide range of areas and she is very interested to grow that partnership further. See attached link for full details of her remarks.
Dr Walter Jayasinghe, the Chairman of the Board of SLF International, USA shared words of appreciation to Ambassador Chung for meeting with the Sri Lankan American community and extended his support to work closely with the Embassy for the betterment of both countries.
The presentations of the panel of speakers were next in the program and Sanje Sedara started out by discussing the initiatives of the Sri Lanka America Chamber of Commerce plans to facilitate and enhance the bilateral trade and commerce between the United States and Sri Lanka, Dr Nirmalani Gunawardana clearly outlined the Educational Projects, followed by Dr Schiro Withanachi elaborated further requesting assistance, Thusitha De Silva was very appreciative for the opportunity to discuss his success stories as well his challenges obtaining visa’s for artists, Lucky Rajasinghe shared the information on Covid Relief Efforts and the support rendered by the US Government to distribute 3.4million Pfizer Vaccinations to Sri Lanka, Navaratnam Nandakumaran who represented the Tamil Community mainly talked about peace and unity among all Sri Lankans, Rohan Sourjah discussed his projects executed in Sri Lanka by the Muslim Community and lastly Andy Samarasena proudly presented his success in the movie business and requested assistance for further assistance to increase corporation from the US Embassy in Colombo to expand opportunities.
Ambassador Designate, H.E Chung responded positively with very encouraging words to each of the Panelists by giving them assurance to work on the projects presented to increase corporation from the US Embassy.
The program ended successfully in a timely manner with the Vote of Thanks by the President/CEO, Dr Dishan Jayasinha of the Sri Lanka Foundation International, USA.
Received many positive feedback from the attendees as well as questions and concerns to be forwarded to Ambassador Designate Chung of areas of projects.
Click the link below to watch the complete program:
https://youtu.be/3MgG1W8SCOs
