Rakimu Asiri Samanola Giri
Sri Lanka is a country that consists with many places with ecological values, biological values and religious values. Many local and foreign peoples visit many places with these values. All these people visit these places mainly with the intention of relaxation and enjoyment. Many visitors only think about themselves without considering their social responsibility. Therefore main purpose of our project is to guide people to fulfill their social responsibility and to give them a chance to rethink whether their behavior on such place is acceptable.
For this purpose we choose a sacred place “Sripada mountain “. The main reason to select Sripada mountain for this purpose is that, it is a religious place which is worshipped by every pilgrims of each religion and it is place with ecological and biological values. Therefore we think we will be able make a huge impact to the entire society through our project. Sripada mountain is worshipped by many local and foreign devotees. Due to huge devotees visit Sripada mountain during the season of worship huge amount of garbage and wastage such plastic, papers, polythene etc. is collected in this sacred place. Sripada mountain is covered with huge forest with huge ecological value. Due to improper disposal of garbage by the people cause a huge damage to the environment. For this purpose we conducted a project called “රකිමු අසිරි සමනොළ ගිරි.“
About the Project
We conducted an article series and video series to aware the pilgrims of the Sri Pada and it was started on 3rd of April. We posted our introduction video about the importance and historical values of Sri Pada area.
After that we posted six videos to aware the proper disposal of wastage that people carry to Sri Pada . The message for these videos were taken from the religious leaders, celebrities and from the Vice Chancellor of university of Sri Jayewardenepura. Also we published articles which were related to Sri Pada area through our Facebook and Instagram pages to aware the society about this.
And also we post a article series about the importance values and historical values about the Sripada mountain. From this article series our intention were to inform people about the importance of keep this sacred place clean and to guide them to behave properly in such places.
ශ්රීපාදස්ථානයේ ඓතිහාසික වැදගත්කම – https://www.facebook.com/134526667213200/posts/940000246665834/
ශ්රීපාදස්ථානය වන්දනා කිරීමට යන වන්දනාකරුවන් දැනුවත් විය යුතු කරුණු හා චාරිත්ර – https://www.facebook.com/134526667213200/posts/940614213271104/
සමනල කන්ද සහ සමනල අඩවිය – https://www.facebook.com/134526667213200/posts/941104666555392/
සමනොල ගිරි මුදුනේ අපූර්වත්වයෙන් යුතු වග තුග – https://www.facebook.com/134526667213200/posts/941747223157803/
සිරිපා කරුණා අතීත හා වත්මන් වතගොත – https://www.facebook.com/134526667213200/posts/942827993049726/
The Second phase of the project was “Shramadana Campaign”. Our team worshiped Sri Pada on 10th & 11th April and on the way we kept dustbins near the “Ambalam” and near the places were more wastage collected. We conducted Shramadana campaign near Seetha gangula Ambalama, Rathu Ambalama, Idikatupana Ambalama, Ahela Kanuwa Aambalama and Uda maluwa by cleaning those places.
As the final step we took live videos from the Sripada mountain and then we post them on our social media platform to give the message to the society by educating them emotionally on how to keep this sacred area in good condition without unnecessary wastes and how to protect the natural beauty of Sri Pada area.
Impact of the project
According to the purpose of our project we were able to create huge and effective impact to the society as a whole. And important point is that we were able to address every religious groups in Srilanka as Sripada mountain is sacred place worshipping by different religious groups. The important message we gave to the entire society is that ” Go and visit the beauty of the nature without doing a single harm to natural environment ” and We were able to create a question in the people’s mind ” whether their behaviour is in a acceptable way on these valuable places. “