Mega project for AEED Foundation

09. 09. 2010 - Rome, Italy.

1. It is worth to mention here for all those who wish to know, and by knowing to act, our basic principles. On this ground the first thing is to underline is this: our firm idea on education and on formation. The education (= formal school, University and other) doesn't form good or bad people; but it just offers adequate and coherent instruments to the person who already had been formed at home. Therefore, ethic must come first, and then education. NB: for ethic we AEED Foundation anticipate a way inevitably and immediately based, motivated and firmed up by reciprocal respect for the freedom of the others. The AEED foundation also had to ground on democracy as the fundamental reason to be in act; that is to say, as we know, democracy is an active process which is direct to a perfect society where we can find the people who think before act and where the golden rule can be activated. Therefore the democracy is something to be realized and right now nowhere in the world a single state or an organization could boast to be democratic. So our purpose also oriented to form a perfect democratic society.

2. The social, economic and cultural development of a country is fundamentally depends on its general educational plan; which means that this is the catalyst of a given society on which flows its life. Forming a capricious education system we can gain just discontinuity and disorder of a society which formed by distorted individuals. A plan of an “open educational system” does not come out of just imitating another plan which had its prosperity according to the specific locus, time and availability of the resources. It must be moulded on the base of given space-time; in other words specific country or society. On the other hand there must be another important faculty: to absorb the necessary principles and procedures from the others (civilizations, cultures and organizations etc.). For this we need a group of innovators and not imitators who on their way, conduct only to establish on commodity and to consume what is available and not to discover “new practices”. On the other side, a purely imitated educational plan is an optimum way to start and to maintain a colony. This is what the famous Italian political thinker Antonio Gramsci meant by the revolution without shading a drop of blood, and is practiced specially by USA (via music, films, literature and making universal models such as intellectuals, actors, singers, awarded people, universities). In this way we have to respect and obey the given restrictions, otherwise we are judged and doomed to be stopped and destroyed by their speculations made by institutions established, sponsored and promoted to maintain their power and order on others. Therefore we have to promote a new way of looking at world within and around of the people of Sri Lanka. This shouldn’t be tried as something unusual, fast or radical, but something as real and coherent with our principles.

3. As we believe, innovators, leaders, intellectuals also can be trained; otherwise the process to be democratic should be an illusion. On the other hand education is an on-going process. That is to say, according to our principles; there shouldn’t be radical dogmatic interruptions of the formation of a person. But the restriction of the age is respected under given welfare programme where fundamental principles are determined by Social-Political-Economic and Cultural (SPEC) situation. AEED Foundation as a principle treats people as what they are, respecting specially the personality for what he or she is, of any age group. The necessary requirement is that the person should be motivated or/and talented. For this we locate the person on the centre of the formation and not the system, because each person is a world which has its hidden connections with the universe which in their turns come in to act only when the person is free and respected accepting what he or she is. In this way, we can find a solution for the problem that we meet everywhere and anytime: there are jobs, but we have no qualified people.

4. Our formation is based on respect of the traditional, historical and cultural aspects of Sri Lanka, because they provide us the necessary concepts, plausible procedures and models. On this ground the dialogue (= language-action) which depart from the individual level to expand towards national and international level helps us to locate the person in the centre of the formation. The person should dialogue with any given flexible system because the diversity of characteristics of the person enriches them. We don’t approve any attempt of uniform this diversity.

We can specify then as our vital object: grounding on dialogue which is enforced by a dialectical vision of the reality, we first locate our vision on given real situations with new interpretations, in order to help the rural and urban disadvantaged people to live with dignity. We continue to help this people with a research group which dedicate their time, energy and will of their own accord to find available resources in site. Then we concentrate to develop them with the help of the innovative power of the people of the place.

To realize this project:

• We have to collect information and research material of the site and this should be a continues activity of the project;
• We have to find external resources (books, periodicals, magazines, newspapers and articles) on national and international level;
• We have to organize seminars, conferences and workshops.
• We have to use the new technology for research, to reproduce, to store, and to publish our researches and innovations.
• These materials are destined specially to the people of the site, but this should be necessarily open resources for all those who are interested;
• We plan to teach also foreign languages. As the first step, we start teaching Sinhala, Tamil, and English. Then dialoguing with the demands of our projects can find out what we can add. Beyond our general objectives this language project is necessarily fundamental for all our principles. To develop the language knowledge and skills of the children and youth of the slums to form an open mind which on its way becomes the catalyst for the person to go beyond from the local mind, and this is vital and crucial. On this way we hope to form the person for a dialectical view, which leads to enlarge the horizon; in other words, to form a person who preoccupy not only for his/her own needs, or local interests, but also to be a responsible person who identify first with the humanity and then its good. This educational pack consists of three elements: development of the libraries, language studies with laboratories and theatre, Music and arts and crafts.

• On this way we have a direct plan to form our future leaders of the country under an economic-political plan. On this matter we have to say that, a school or special kind of on-going formation centre for the politicians is nowhere in the world. That is to say, we are not going to pretend a perfect formal programme for this purpose, but, basing on our direct and indirect experience regarding national and international economics and politics we can find necessary forces and tools to depart for this kind of ambitious project for our country.

All these objectives directly demand adequate spaces to continue their activities. That is to say, we have to build a school for these purposes. On the other hand, we have also the intension of eventual expansion of our activities in other parts of Sri Lanka especially of north and east. In this point of view, our Hendala Ferry Road, Colombo 15, site will be the centre for all our expansions.