Rtr. PP Amristar and a Journey Most Rewarding

by Rtr. Shakoora Amith

When  Rtr. PP Amristar Wickramaratne walked into her first Rotaract meeting, never had she expected it to have such a great impact on her life. It was an abrupt decision, she says, where she happened to slip into a Rotaract meeting while trying to save herself from being ragged. It was from this point forth that her Rotaract journey began, where she had gradually learned to love the club for its focus on global development and admits that she was extremely interested in it as it gave her the opportunity to serve the community.

Working under the theme of “new possibilities”, she had united her members together to seek new opportunities to give back to the nation and to create new possibilities along the way, for both the members of the club and the society at large. Looking back, she is immensely content in the knowledge that they had been able to achieve their goals together, amidst all the adversities that they had had to face. It had been a delightful journey although she admits that she did not care much for the politics within the movement.

According to the club history of Rotaract Arts, the year 2016-17 under Rtr. PP Amristar had been recognized as one of the most significant years.  This was the year when Rotaract Arts was awarded the most outstanding club for the year 2016-17. Both the president and the secretary (Rtr. Pramodha Weerasekara) managed to receive the awards for the most outstanding club president and the most outstanding club secretary that year. They also brought home a Gold award for the most outstanding community service project in the category of Peace and reconciliation (Coexist) and a Gold award for the Most outstanding international service project (Kuppiya). This was also the year that the club hosted the Rotaract District Assembly (along with two other fellow clubs) for the appointment of Rtr. PP Anuradha Senanayake as the District Rotaract Representative.

Scheduling meetings, organizing social events and overseeing a number of projects while handling academics at the same time, can be an arduous challenge. Yet Rtr. PP Amristar believes that the best lesson she learnt as a president of the Rotaract Club and also as the joint director of community service in the District committee of 2017-18

was to never give up. “Many challenges will be thrown at you, but you just need to keep going and brave the wave.”

She expresses great delight in the progress of the club and the growing number of initiatives and is happy to witness Rotaract Arts gain more recognition day after day.

“Happy to see the club growing each day,” she says, “Keep the flag flying high!”