Grand welcome for MV Queen Victoria at Laksala

Hundreds of passengers of MV Queen Victoria arrived in Laksala at Thummulla, Colombo 07 on 29th this month received a grand welcome. Visitors entered Laksala throughout the day amidst traditional Kandyan dancing and drumming. They reached the flagship store from 9.30 am 5.30pm on a special shuttle bus service operated from the Port of Colombo.

Tourists visited had an opportunity to see how wooden masks and elephants were carved by skilful craftsmen who were on Laksala premises and they were delighted with handicrafts products on sale in the showroom. The management at Laksalka had prepared special arrangements such as various traditional dancing events to entertain passengers. Whenever this ocean liner arrives in Sri Lanka, tourists onboard visited Laksala as usual.

The MV Queen Victoria, which has been the second largest Cunard ship ever built next to the Queen Mary II, is a UK-registered ship operated by Cunard. The £270m worth, 294m long and a 90,000t cruise ship constructed by Fincantieri Maritimo in Maghera near Venice in Italy. The ship has a passenger capacity of 2,014 with 1,001 crew and 1,007 cabins (creating a passenger to crew ratio of 2:1). Around 86% of staterooms are outside and 71% of staterooms have balconies. There is 10,000ft of open deck space. The vessel’s maiden voyage from Southampton (its home port) took place on 11 December 2007.

Laksala opens the door to children with special needs

Laksala really wants for children with special needs to be happy and fulfilling life, and also believes that they could build a strong sense of self-confidence and a solid foundation for lifelong success with encouragement and the right support. Therefore, the management at Laksala has already made a decision to support children with special needs of the Child Guidance Center (CGC) at Maharagama, which is governed by the Department of Social Service, under its Cooperate Social Responsibility (CSR) project.

Children from CGC at Maharagama presenting dance at Laksala

A dance troupe from CGC visited Laksala premises at Thummulla, Colombo 07  and entertained European tourists with a delightful performance on 29th this month. Tourists were delighted with children’s presentation and applauded at the end of it.  

Mrs. R. A. D . Hansani and Mrs. Sujani Udawatta and two pre-school teachers of the centre at Maharagama accompanied these children and in a special interview Mrs. R. A. D . Hansani said “  We have around 120 children at our centre in Maharagama. Our vision is to create a conducive environment for children with special needs to live just as same as others to maintain interrelations with family members and community and optimally using available strengths and resources.”

“The specialty of our center is interventions to provide services at a very early age (from 03 months), providing services to any child with physical, mental disabilities or any other special needs, interventions for development of children through(Multi-Disciplinary Team Work), offering services as per special methodologies for client children(Individual Assessment - Progress Review), providing services to each child as per an Individual Education Plan (IEP), referring to preschools and formal school system after developing basic skills, focusing primary attention on the development of day-to-day life skills, providing post-care services for children referred to preschools and formal education, services being rendered by trained staff with requisite qualifications and experience and adopting a holistic approach which pays attention to all stakeholders (Client Children/Parents/Family Members/Community etc).”

Mrs. R. A. D. Hansani and Mrs. Sujani Udawatta
Pre-school Teachers at CGC

Mrs. Sujani Udawatta added " We provide special services for parents and family members of children with special needs. They are psychological and counselling services for mental development, health educational service programmes, religious programmes (sil and meditation programmes, christmas celebration, pilgrimages to prominent places of worship, educational tours and picnics), conducting internal and external programmes under nature therapy academy and programmes for brothers and sisters of families.”

“ We are also conducting occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and physiotherapy for these children. We would like to remind that Mrs. G. L. L. Gunasinghe, Superintendent of our centre, works with great enthusiasm and dedication to achieve the goals of our centre.”