Response to Daham Sirisena,

Dear Daham, 

I'm going to respond to your face book comment as the person who designed the National UN youth delegate program of Sri Lanka to include democratically selected youth delegates to UN processes. And also as a person who supported and worked actively to support your father to become the president. I agree with you that the first family is invited to UNGA and you represent the country. In this context I wish to bring this to your attention. 

1. Namal Rajapakse did the same and claimed it was positive to the country.

2. And UN major group on youth and children had a Sri Lankan representation before that were selected in a national program and was known in UN system to be one of the most effective processes for selecting youth delegates.

3. When Sri Lanka has a National Youth Services Council that is the only authority to select youth delegate in a mutually developed process with International agencies, it is wrong that you forcibly represent Sri Lankan young people.

4. You may think you got something back to Sri Lanka, but you just made your father a laughing stock and embarrassed our country by becoming a self proclaimed youth delegate.

5. What you should have been doing is that allow our official national UN youth delegates selected every year to seat where you were seating and become an ambassador to their work.

6. Don’t put a UN youth delegate program respected world wide to the coffin by overstepping your role as a member of our first family. Then Ministry of Youth affairs and National Youth Services Council developed this program so that people in power or with money cannot represent our young people and Sri Lankan youth can decide who will be representing them.

7. If you have a issue with what I’m telling you please read that the youth in post 2015 development agenda decision making or simply go to the UN youth delegate program.

8. Before you come and claim you represented us in an illegitimate way lot of rich kids from Colombo with parents with deep pockets wanted to represent Sri Lanka in telling the world they are important. There were forces in the then government also wanted to put the friends of then president’s son in to representing us. But finally we didn’t allow them to, and we work very hard under a very difficult situation to make a democratic process to have real young people represent young people of our country. 

My recommendation: 

1.      Support the UN supported youth agenda carried out by the National Youth Services Council and be a supporting person to the UN youth delegate program. (Don’t think you can do it by becoming the youth delegate yourself).

2.      Go take an effort to meet the current UN youth delegate and the once from last year and talk to them about the UN SDG youth agenda and how you can help them do their job.

If you are willing to make a real effort we will support you in our hearts and mind, but if you try to do the same thing what Namal did before you, if would oppose you in the same way we oppose Namal.