Some FOG-events in November

Recently FOG celebrated an English & Tamil day (as posted in my previous <blog>). This time it was in combination with the tamil language course. I attended the first 30 min of the celebration which started with some worship rituals where FOG founder Kushil Gunasekara, FOG general manager Sampath Viraj Prasanjana, IT & Psycho social section head Fazana Ibrahim & others were coloured with a Hindu point on their forehead (the majority of the Tamils are Hindus in contrast to the Singhalese which are mostly Buddhist). I also got painted and I looked very different afterwards (my impression). What a difference a small dot on the forehead can make!

Sampath Viraj Prasanjana and Kushil Gunasekera 

Sampath Viraj Prasanjana and Suranga Jayasekera Arachchi

Sampath Viraj Prasanjana, Suranga Jayasekera Arachchi and Fazana Ibrahim

After the painting session the crowd wandered into the ceremony hall. 

Soon all seats were occupied but still a croud was standing around watching the event. This time many people came. Before people started to speak on stage the obligatory Sri lankan intro ceremony took place, the lighting of oil lamps. Again the management team of FOG was asked to come to the front and one after the other lighted an oil lamp. I had to light one too :-). Unfortunately I then had to leave as I was about to conduct a Yoga class at the sports centre shortly. So I left.... But a complete report can be found here . And there was also some press echo to be found here.

Friday 18th of Nov Microsoft came to visit FOG with a bunch of volunteers. This was a nice event as Microsoft sent experts for many units of the foundation (IT, business, pre school,  house holding, etc.) to provide expertise and conduct workshops for the people attending the FOG courses. One very interesting event was the donation of the multipointer computer projector which was installed at the pre school. This device enables 6 kids at one time to play games or learn under the direction of person who controls the multipointer from a separate working desk. A very cool device. See in following some videos of the multipointer system.

Also for this event you can find more information here.