Dhananath Fernando – determined to do much for Sri Lanka

Ansuman Bhagat’s advice: “Build yourself up to stand out and be recognized in a crowd.” is the perfect quote for this article on an outstanding young man, who surely will go places and make his family, his mentor Elmo Jayawardena, and Sri Lanka proud of him.

I have just had a friendly chat with him and I find he ‘built’ himself; he stands out and is noticed in a crowd and within a couple of years, I am certain, will be recognized widely in the entirety of Sri Lanka.

Mentor’s input

Capt. Elmo Jayawardena wrote to me that Dhananath Fernando, who has served CandleAid very much, was selected for a prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship for 2022. I promptly said I wanted to write about him, mostly because we cling to what is encouraging and wish to meet young persons who quietly do much to improve our country. I need to share such, hence this article.

There is no better beginning to the article than to quote Elmo from his email to me. So here goes (quoted with permission granted):

“I met Dhananath 10 years ago. He was out of Uni and looking for a way of life. He did not have any electrical lift to shoot to the top. He just had himself and his old parents to take off and maybe a rickety ladder with most rungs missing. I needed young capable people to work with me as volunteers to make this world a better place for people who suffered the multiple burdens of poverty.

“Dhananath joined me in an ‘out of the box’ project to teach poor blind boys to swim. We taught more than 30 kids to swim 25 meters in 12 lessons. Dhananath was my co-pilot. Next came a trilingual literary festival I was organizing – Annasi and Kadalagotu. An entrance ticket costing 100 rupees for the whole day was for all comers and affordable to the poorest of literature lovers. We had a very successful event and I moved out and gave the reins to Dhananath who very efficiently organized three more festivals till the Corona pandemic hit us.

“CandleAid, the humanitarian organization I founded, opened 210 small libraries in villages. He was there with me the last few years to meet village children and gift them books. He was there to stand in dilapidated schoolyards and speak and pour into the little minds the value of reading. Dhananath was an excellent communicator.”

Life, education and employment

Dhananath told me he comes from a humble background with roots in Deniyaya but his parents settled down in Keselwatte, living across the river from Elmo and Dil. Dhananath is an only child and schooled in St Sebastians’s College. His father retired from the CTB when the son was still young so when he entered the Science Faculty of the Colombo University reading Chemistry and Bioscience, he earned money through offering tuition to AL students.

“The turning point in my life was meeting Captain Elmo J. He invited me to join CandleAid; introduced me to many persons, some very important and influential; and most significantly encouraged and persuaded me to improve my English language skills. I worked very diligently at this and it has paid dividends, broadening my horizon.

“After gradation I joined MAS Holdings, then a marketing company. By then I was also self learning economics since having followed a science course, economics was entirely a new subject field to me. But I realized it was vitally important, more so where Sri Lanka is concerned, because most of our troubles are due to economic mismanagement. I self studied and found I had the advantage of being able to translate and explain in simple language economic concepts, theories etc in both Sinhala and English.” He added he invariably simplifies what he is explaining, since he finds that experts often speak only to co-experts, understood by them alone.

He went on to say how fulfilling and happiness-giving were the projects he undertook with Capt Elmo. He added a further project not mentioned in Elmo’s note quoted above: teaching and encouraging university students to gain competence in English. He also elaborated on the A&K one day literary festival, latterly held at the Mt Lavinia Hotel. The organizers gave a manual labourer – Timran Kirthi – a slot to share his poetry with an audience. He went on to win a State Literary Award. An autistic young author was short listed for the Gratiaen Prize; first made himself seen and his creative writing heard at one of the A&K Lit Fes.

Maybe Dhananath’s greatest achievement so far is his being a co-founder with Murtaza Jafferjee, Prof Razeen Sally and a few other like-minded persons of the think tank Advocata Institute in 2016. He was sole worker in the outfit in Colombo, but now is Chief Operating Officer with twelve working with him, mostly women, who he says are very competent and dedicated. I saw on News at Nine on MTV 1 channel on Tuesday August 30, Dhananath commenting on the interim budget presented that day in Parliament. He dealt with taxation, simply and understandably to even a school child or mere reader of newspapers.

“The Advocata Institute is an independent policy think tank based in Colombo. We conduct research, provide commentary and hold events to promote sound policy ideas compatible with a free society in Sri Lanka.” Dhananth mentioned that the University of Pennsylvania had ranked the local institute as one of the best up-coming think tanks. He further mentioned one achievement of the Institute, having the tax on sanitary napkins reduced from a high of 107% so that necessity became affordable to even the poorer woman.

Eisenhower Fellowship

Dhananath with not an iota of self pride, told me that only 25 persons from around the world are selected for this Fellowship each year. So a young Sri Lankan is honouring our country by being one of highly selective this year.

I quote: “The Eisenhower Fellowship identifies, empowers and connects innovative leaders through a transformative fellowship experience and lifelong engagement in a global network of dynamic, change agents committed to creating a world more peaceful, prosperous and just.” It is a private, non-profit organization created in 1953 by a group of prominent Americans to honour the 34th US President – Dwight D Eisenhower (1953-61) – for his contribution to humanity as a soldier, statesman and world leader, He served in WWII as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe.

Reading the above one can gauge what a prestigious honour Dhananath has earned for himself and the country. (Note – I do not say ‘has been given’ but ‘earned’). He told me that he travels to the US early October and arrangements will be made for them to visit institutions widely for the duration of about eight weeks. Each award winner has to come up with a project to be implemented in his/her home country. Dhananath plans to draw up a plan to introduce, educate and empower students with economic literacy on an online platform, made interesting and innovative with stories and humour interlaced.

He explained that know-how was lacking among ordinary people, one aspect being the continuation of the poverty cycle, due to economic mismanagement and how they could help themselves. Know-how was lacking among the so called educated youth too since subjects are compartmentalized; a science student knows no economics and Arts Faculties do not touch on any science subject. This was not so in advanced countries. Dhananath wishes to remedy this situation as far as is possible. “Knowing economics is so important. I see no future for Sri Lanka if people and, more especially, students are not widely knowledgeable.”

I asked him what piece of advice he would give the young person of now. His immediate reply: “Do not get frustrated. Do not give up. You can make a change.” He does not criticize those who seek greener pastures overseas but is strongly desirous of the young who stay home to get themselves widely educated, even through self teaching, like he did, and be more capable and competent to do their bit to improve the country.