By Ruvini Jayasinghe
World opinion is divided. Are leaders born or made? While psychologists and others argue on both sides of the divide, there is strong evidence to prove both sides have a strong case.
In the 21st century great personalities and politicians who changed or shaped the future of the world like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, were proclaimed natural born leaders with a charisma that enabled them to gather many followers.
On the other side of the coin Henry Ford, for example, was born into the hardship of a disadvantaged, immigrant family; yet he beat the odds and developed himself as a leader to become one of the most influential people in the business sector.
Leaders come from all walks of life, people can become leaders at any point in their lives, or be better leaders over time.
Prescribing to this view wholeheartedly and pitching his might to train successful leaders is a youthful public administration professional who wears many hats. Currently the Chairman of the National Lotteries Board Lalith Piyum Perera, is better known for his role as the head of the National Youth Services Council (NYC) an experience that would be a springboard for his next career move directly involved with providing political leadership to this country.
In the recent past, attorney at Law, Lalith Piyum Perera, distinguished himself as a champion for building and nurturing youth leadership. A past head of the National Youth Services Council (NYSC), Mr. Perera has been in the forefront of launching and promoting organisations that build youth leadership and training young academics and professionals for leadership roles in their chosen fields and at national level, as Sri Lanka’s future leaders.
BMD spoke with Piyum Perera on his rare and distinct skill and overriding passion of identifying and building youth leadership, to take on the immense task of being the future leaders of our country.
“I would rather let others to speak about me than describing myself,” Mr. Perera says. His charismatic contribution to building the next generation of Sri Lanka’s leadership is endorsed by several distinguished personalities…..
For example Dr. Palitha Kohona, Former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, has said, “The World Youth Conference 2014 to be held in Sri Lanka is also the very first of whole of Asia and it is a tremendous achievement of Chairman Lalith Piyum Perera.” Dr. Kohona made this statement while addressing an event to promote International Youth Conference, 2014 at UN Headquarters in New York, 2013. In another tribute, to his entrepreneurship in leadership training, Commonwealth Secretariat in London, Youth Affairs Division, Layne Robinson has said, The model and structure of Sri Lanka Youth Parliament and the Structure of Federations of Youth Clubs are two best models in the world at the moment. We must praise the effort of the chairman.”
Similar comments and endorsement on Mr. Perera’s work with youth leadership have been made by Former United Nations Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth, Mr.Ahmed Alhendavi; “The introduction of a system in the caliber of Youth Parliament by the Chairman has contributed immensely towards youth and it is one only kind that you may find in whole of the world.” Mr. Ahmed Alhendavi made these comments while visiting Sri Lanka Youth Parliament.
Mr John Loughton, Director, Dare to Lead (Winner of JCI Global Award in the same category-2013) has been superlative in his appreciation of Mr. Perera.
He has said : “The Chairman was very open-minded, ambitious and engaging through all parts of the program and clearly demonstrated a commitment to not only involving youth, but empowering them to make their own decisions. This is very rare in senior officials around the world in my experience. Any accolade that recognizes the progressive, innovative and exciting approach Lalith Piyum adapts to delivering better outcomes for youth in Sri Lanka – and globally – I would firmly welcome.” And Executive Director of Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council, Vic Creggs, says: “Sri Lanka has become a front runner in world youth exchange programs under the leadership of Mr.Lalith Piyum Perera.”
In an honest and outspoken interview with BMD Mr. Perera underscored the fact that the present generations of parliamentarians lack the skills and capabilities of becoming true statesmen. In the present parliament are some without a complete education or the training in leadership or other skills to make them proper parliamentarians, let alone true leaders, he admitted. The youth parliament concept introduced in 2010/11 was an answer to this problem he says.
Excerpts from the interview:
How did you get involved with the National Youth Services Council (NYSC)?
The NYC was a UN funded program and the initial concept was the brainchild of Minister Dallas Allahapperuma. I was working in his Ministry at that time, as well. The year 2010 was declared as the International Youth Year and we started the NYSC to mark the occasion and take our vision of training Sri Lanka’s youth in leadership skills forward. I was appointed to head this project and was thoroughly involved in its activities. Unfortunately, it has been defunct for the past 21/2 years or so. But we intend to revive it after the general elections as we saw huge value in this program.
What were the leadership programs conducted under the NYSC and what was the role of the youth parliament in the NYSC?
A entire cross-section of our society including teachers, lawyers, doctors academics, professional of various fields have been through our youth parliament.
We had tailor made training sessions where the potential leaders’ skills and weakness would be analysed and developed individually. The applicants to the NYC were elected through a youth club system.
The need to train young professionals and academics to become good leaders with the required leadership skills was a dire need. The poor leadership qualities of some of our members of parliament are glaringly obvious. To build a good sound leadership there has to be an institution or many institutions whose chief task would be to identify potential leaders and give them all the necessary training to become our future leaders.
A good example is our present new UN envoy Jayathma Wickramanayake. She is a leader under the UN, responsible for youth affairs and directly works under the UN Secretary General. I am proud to say she is a product of youth parliament.
The youth parliament is a training ground for building values, education in parliamentary system, enhancing leadership skills, focussed on developing social and other skills, which all contribute to building good politician or leaders in their fields.
As the incumbent head of the National Lotteries Board what improvements do you visualise for this business?
We have about 40,000 vendors in the whole of Sri Lanka a majority of them disabled and unable to do any other job. They are the silent workers who never get into the limelight but who makes the country’s primer lottery the success it is for the past 50 years.
My vision is to improve their life and status. I have plans to begin a new lottery where the funds will be totally directed towards social service. The funds from the National Lottery are mainly diverted to the Presidents Fund which also assists our citizens with numerous disabilities and health related issues.
My directly involvement in assisting people with disabilities, gave birth to this idea.
An analysis of the lottery market will reveal that the lower middle-income earners form the majority of lottery buyers. However, a niche market could be created in another market segment – the upper middle class with the introduction of a new lottery at a higher price, for a worthy social cause.
About 15% of population, excluding the service personnel injured and disabled during the war, are disabled, physically challenged and are unemployable.
The introduction of a new lottery to a segment of the market which can afford a higher ticket price for a worthy cause seems to be a viable answer to two issues; creating alternate employment to those with disabilities who cannot join the regular workforce in our country and also creating a fund for people with permanent disabilities to get assistance from the fund for some remedy or relief.
You mentioned direct involvement with People with disabilities. Please tell us more on that?
Throughout my career I have been helping people with disabilities. Sri Lanka’s first Youth Policy was drafted in 2014. The policy recognised youth with disabilities and their rights and the need to facilitate them to be employable. The policy identified activities to be supported and maintained by the government. We organised a program titled Sihinaya for disabled youth to display their talent and skills in the arts and discovered that many had impressive talents in singing, dancing, playing musical instruments drawing and painting and handcrafts etc.
As the one-time Chairman of the NYSC how would you evaluate your contribution to building youth leadership?
Being in the youth development sector for more than ten years, I have contributed to policy formulation and implementation at both local and global levels. For example during my tenure as the Director General, Youth Services in Sri Lanka we developed the National Youth Policy for Sri Lanka , the first ever National Policy framework developed in Sri Lanka targeting young people. This had been a true consultative process and a cross-sectoral approach throughout the country.
I was also directly involved with the Formation of Sri Lanka Youth Parliament. This has been a youth leadership development initiative which was highly recognized at UN high level and locally too. The democratic election process supported grass-root level youth leaders to get involved and actively participate in the mainstream development processes. During my tenure the Recognition for Emerging Young Leaders initiative greatly contributed to recognize best out of the best among young people and supported them to be developed to global level. AS I mentioned before Jayathma Wickramanayake, the present special envoy on youth of the UN Secretary General has been a product of this initiative.
I was also involved with the World Conference on Youth (WCY-2014) – This had been the first ever World Conference on Youth held in the Global South since its inception in 1987. This platform supported to bring thousands of youth from 186 countries all around the world, down to Sri Lanka and share experiences, expertise and knowledge with Sri Lankan youth. The outcome of this WCY-2014 dialogue had been fed into the global process which developed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the “Colombo Declaration on Youth”.
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Lalith Piyum Perera
• Practicing Attorney-at-Law
• Visiting Lecture in Administrative & Constitutional Law and Public Policy at SLIDA for Masters students and SLAS Cadets – 2016 to present
• Director General of Youth Services Sri Lanka – 2010-2015
• Chairman of National Youth Services Council- 2010-2015
• Chairman of the Sri Lanka Federation of Youth Clubs– 2010-2015
• Chairman of National Youth Services Co-operative Society Union – 2010-2015
• Director General to the Oceanic University of Sri Lanka – 2007-2010
• Apprentice Lawyer at the Attorney General’s Department
Contributions in Professionals’ Movements
• Secretary of Voice for Justice
• Convener of the Policy Formulation Group of SLPP
• Member of ExCo and the Spokesperson of the SLPP Lawyers’ Association
• President of Sri Lanka Law Students’ Union at Sri Lanka Law College
• Secretary to Asia of the World Youth Congress (WYC-2010 in Mexico)
• Advisor to Asian Young Politicians’ Platform (SAYPPL)
• Vice President of Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation
• General Secretary to “TharunyataHetak” youth movement
Education and academic ahievements
• Boys College, Mahara (1982-1987) – Grade Five Scholarship
• Royal College, Colombo-07 (1988-1995) – GCE Ordinary Level and GCE Advanced Level
• Sri Lanka Law College (1997-2000) – Attorney-At-Law Finals
• University of Colombo, Faculty of Arts (1998-2001) – Bachelor of Arts Degree
• Kingston University, United Kingdom (2003-2005) – Masters in Business Law
• TVET training project Polytechnic, Singapore – Certificate of Management and Development of a Modern Institute Course at Nanyang Polytechnic
• The International Visitors’ Council of Columbus, Ohio, USA – Certificate for Legislative Fellows Program for South and Central Asia
• State Department of United States (2012) – Certificate for Professional Legislative Fellows Course
• Ten Outstanding Young People of Sri Lanka (TOYP) Winner in “Political, Legal and Public Administration” category – 2013