The Sri Lanka Embassy together with the Sri Lanka Association in Cairo organized a Buddhist Religious Ceremony at the Embassy premises from 27th - 28th December 2012 to invoke blessings to President, Mahinda Rajapaksa and all Sri Lankans for the New Year.
The religious ceremony was conducted by Venerable Professor Induragare Dhammaratana Thero, Senior Lecturer of the University of Kelaniya. At the request of the Embassy, the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment sponsored the travel arrangement of Venerable Thero.
The Sri Lanka Embassy together with the Sri Lanka Association in Cairo organized a Buddhist Religious Ceremony at the Embassy premises from 27th - 28th December 2012 to invoke blessings to President, Mahinda Rajapaksa and all Sri Lankans for the New Year.
The religious ceremony was conducted by Venerable Professor Induragare Dhammaratana Thero, Senior Lecturer of the University of Kelaniya. At the request of the Embassy, the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment sponsored the travel arrangement of Venerable Thero.
The two-day religious ceremony included Dhamma sermons, Dhamma discussions, Dana and observance of Sil. A blood donation campaign was also organized on 28th December. Nearly 100 Sri Lankans donated blood at the Embassy premises. The enthusiastic donor participation in big number at the campaign displayed Sri Lankan peoples’ kindness and sincerity to the cause of humanity beyond the shores of Sri Lanka. The officials of the Egyptian National Blood Bank appreciated the generous response from Sri Lankans to the blood donation campaign, which they said was the first of its kind under the auspices of the Sri Lanka Embassy in Cairo. Venerable Dhammaratana Thero said that donating blood is a great meritorious deed one can do in one’s life time. H.E. Sudantha Ganegama Arachchi thanked the Sri Lankan community for their support towards this event and especially the donors’ generosity for the success of the blood donation campaign.
This campaign was one of the initiatives aimed at strengthening people-to-people contact and further improving relations between Egypt and Sri Lanka.
More than 250 Sri Lankans participated in the two-day religious ceremony in Cairo. The Embassy also arranged a separate religious ceremony on 29th December 2012 in Alexandria for the Sri Lankans living there. As the Sri Lankan Community in Egypt rarely get opportunity to participate at this kind of religious ceremonies, they expressed their gratitude to the Embassy in Cairo and Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau for arranging the religious ceremony.
Embassy of Sri Lanka
Cairo
31st December 2012
