Scientific revival for Jaffna’s youth

By rebuilding a fallen edifice, we share the message of peace and address the needs of the future generation’s right to access information and education.

The Thondaimannaru Field Research Station was built with the aim of rejuvenating scientific education in the Jaffna peninsula.

In February 2013, the newly constructed Thondaimannaru Field Research Station was vested on its hereditary custodians – the Field Work Centre (FWC), Jaffna’s scientific community and the people of the Northern Province. This marked the beginning of a series of activities spearheaded by Dilmah Conservation aimed at rejuvenating scientific education in the Jaffna peninsula.

The Field Research Station was built as part of the Reconciliation Through the Power of Nature Programme carried out, since the end of the war, by Dilmah Conservation in partnership with the Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka (FOGSL) and the Centre for Children’s Happiness in Jaffna (CCH).

The Thondaimannaru Field Research Station serves as the coordinating body for nearly 100 school-based Nature Appreciation Clubs established in the Northern Province. In November 2013, students and teachers representing 23 schools across the Jaffna District, guided by resource persons from the Field Work Centre and the Jaffna University, participated in a series of student-led biodiversity assessments in the Jaffna peninsula. Training included methods of identification, observation and documentation, hands on experience in ecological research and specimen collection methodologies.

With the rebuilding of the Thondaimannaru Field Research Station, Jaffna’s scientific community will once again be able to inculcate scientific learning and thinking in Jaffna’s youth.

I was the secretary when we lost the Thondaimannaru Field Research Station. It is ironic that after the lapse of almost 30 years, I am here as the President of the same society to lay the foundation stone to rebuild my long lost friend

- Professor K. Sinnathamby

President of the Jaffna Field Work Centre during the foundation stone laying ceremony to rebuild the Field Research Station which was destroyed during the conflict.

Professor Sarath Kotagama and Professor Nimal Gunatilleke with Dilhan C. Fernando, son of Dilmah Founder Merrill J. Fernando at the opening of the Thondaimannaru Field Research Station built by Dilmah Conservation in February 2013.