::::::::::::::: Who am I? :::::::::::::::::

I am Ruvini Senevirathna and you can know me as a senior student at the Horizon Lanka Foundation. Born on January 21st, 1989, I have grown up with my two brothers in Mahavilachchiya in the North Central province of Sri Lanka. My parents Lionel Senevirathna and Beatrice Gunawardhana engage in the main occupation of our village which is rice cultivation.

I attend Saliyamala Public School in Mahavilachchiya. I have studied here happily from Grade 1 and have made many friends over the years. The arrival of our English teacher, Mr. Nandasiri Wanninayaka was a great blessing to us as he provided us with many new opportunities which we had never even dreamt of, before. As a result, students from our school began to get best results for English. In 2004 I sat for the Ordinary Level exam and got good results and I was one of the students who got an A for English. While awaiting my results I joined Horizon Lanka along with my friends and followed courses in Web Designing, Graphic Designing and developing spoken English etc. with a volunteer English teacher. I enjoyed these courses as they helped greatly enhance my knowledge in many areas. 

Since I got good results for the O/L exam, in 2005, I began following classes for the Advanced Level.  I have chosen Political Science, Sinhala & Buddhist Civilization as my subjects. I hope these subjects will be useful in my future endeavors. I am already working very hard for the exam  by writing answers and reading extra books. I will be sitting for the Advanced Level exam in 2007.

Apart from doing studies at school, one of my favorite places to spend time at, next to my home, is Horizon Lanka Foundation. I have been studying there for about 7 years now. It has been the place where I have gained much knowledge about many fields, especially Computer Technology.

Radhika, Iresha, Duleeka, Aruni, Krishanthi, Ranuka, Nuwan, Majith, Dinesh are friends I made at Horizon Lanka. Working as a team has given us a great opportunity to achieve our goals while also helping us to build good friendships.

In addition to my love of Computer Technology, I also enjoy designing websites and creating graphics and I hope to learn programming too.

I have access to a PC at home through the Digital Butterflies project.  This has helped my brothers and me to improve our knowledge of computers. With the help of a second hand computer I designed my own website. After seeing my website, Mr. Gamini Premadasa of LearnAid in Kuwait hired me to build a website for LearnAid.

Mr. Denuwan Wijerathna a Sri Lankan, living in Dubai promised a brand new Desktop PC to the student who got the best results at the O/L exam. I was the student who got the best results but I thought it would be much easier to work with a laptop computer. So, with Mr. Denuwan’s help and the money I earned from designing the website, I was able to buy a laptop computer. 

In 2005 I could attend to a presentation held by Intel in Colombo with 2 of my friends and my teacher. We also get a part in it to do a presentation about us. After the presentation Mr. Craig donated us brand new Laptops. It is also a great help to us to put a step forward.

Getting a scholarship through the MicroScholarships Project has been a great benefit where my academic work is concerned. Mr. Nuwan Samaranayaka a Sri Lankan, living in USA is the one of people who is helping me to further my education. Mr. Alfonso Solideal is also helping students in rural areas and I have been lucky to have met these two gentlemen who have contributed so much towards our education and for that, I am truly grateful and would like to express my sincere appreciation to them both.

Thanks to the help I have received from these generous people, I have been able to realize my dream of completing my higher education. My present goal is to get good results for my Advanced Level exam. Other than that I hope to be able to find a job related to the field of computers.                      

~ by ruvini on June 17, 2007.