As we struggle to emerge from the Covid 19 crisis it is time to look back on the SLMANA activities in the last 7 months.
We began the year with specific goals of providing community health education,scientific discussions, and exploring novel fund raising activities.
What did we achieve?
Community Health Education:
Two webinars were held In partnership with the Sri Lanka Association of New York (SLANY) .
1) presentation and panel discussion on Covid 19 Vaccines which was greatly appreciated by participants from several countries.
2) presentation and panel discussion on Substance Abuse , Recognition and Treatment.
We hope to continue to collaborate with SLANY to conduct more webinars related to topics relevant to the diaspora needs.
3) If all goes well we hope to provide a SLMANA Health Tent in September at the Annual Ananda College Cricket Festival.
Scientific Programs :
We held a very informative Zoom presentation on gene therapy titled “ To Be My DNA or Not To Be” by Dr Sukumar Nagendran. This emerging field holds the key to future treatment of many common diseases including diabetes,heart disease and strokes.
Most importantly, Donations to Sri Lanka took a dramatic turn when Sri Lanka found itself in the Covid 19 crisis situation.
SLMANA Inc took a two pronged approach to the problem by
a) advocating for vaccine distribution to Sri Lanka by means of petitions to the Biden- Harris administration and participating in a round table discussion with the relevant US State Department officials.
b) raising funds for medical equipment to the National Hospital of Sri Lanka which serves the largest number of severely sick Covid 19 patients in the country.
Thanks to the diligent efforts and generous personal contributions of the SLMANA Executive Committee and membership and friends we were able to deliver much needed equipment to the Emergency Treatment Unit of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka.
We continue to urge our members and friends who haven’t yet donated to our efforts to do so now by going to our website: www.slmana.org
With the enthusiastic support of our entire membership and friends we hope to look back one day and say with gratitude that we not only survived this pandemic but somehow achieved our goals as well.
Sincerely,
Trikante Rajapaksa MD, FACP, FACG
Clinical Assistant Professor, New York Medical College
August 10, 2021
