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Enid Blyton and Martin Wickramasingha through Madol Duwa

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I was invited by Uditha Devapriya to make the closing remarks after his lecture on Martin Wickramasingha at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies on Friday the 6 th  February 2026.  The discussion following the presentation consisted of some very interesting and erudite interventions by Professor Sandagomi Coperahewa and Dr Sarath Amunugama and others on Martin Wickramasingha’s contribution to the Sinhala language, and on his anthropological perspectives.  I was quite concerned that my closing remarks would go down as completely irrelevant.  After all, I was never very sure how I qualified to be there. My closest connections with Martin Wickramasingha has been through knowing his children and grandchildren; Uncle SK and Aunty Dham were mentors, VK was a good friend of my father’s, Ishani is  my sister’s classmate,  and Anusha has been a very dear and close friend ever since  I worked with her at the Lanka Mahila Samiti several decades ago. Of cou...
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Hindsight - some thoughts on coordinating the Lanka Mahila Samiti's Small Enterprise Development Programme

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  Hindsight can be quite uncomfortable as those of my generation are keenly aware. In the current context when microfinance seems to be endangering the lives (200 plus women have committed suicide because of their inability to payback microcredit loans), livelihoods and wellbeing of many rural women and their families, and where the limited vision of the  Microfinance and Credit Regulatory Authority Act is likely to exacerbate the situation, my own engagement in the early 1980s implementing the Lanka Mahila Samiti’s Small Enterprise Development Project for Rural Women (SEDP), funded by USAID, makes me feel somewhat complicit in this rather egregious situation.  In this short article, I would like to recall the spirit of the SEDP and its impact on the participating women.  I bel iev e this will provide a historical understanding that could be absent from the analysis of microfinance delivery or from the lived experience of the women imprisoned in the financial vi...
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